'Books,  like  chickens,  should  come  home  to  i-oost." 

PRIVATE  LIBRARY 

....OF.... 

E.  I.  McCORMAC. 


LIBRARY 

ON1VERS1TY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 
SANTA 


If 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


IN  MEMORY  OF 

PROFESSOR 
EUGENE  I.  McCORMAC 


THE  AMERICAN   REVOLUTION 
1763-1783 


THE 

AMERICAN    REVOLUTION 
1763-1783 

BEING  THE  CHAPTERS  AND  PASSAGES  RELATING 

TO  AMERICA  FROM  THE  AUTHOR'S  HISTORY  OF 

ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 


BY 

WILLIAM  EDWARD  HARTPOLE   LECKY,  M.  P. 

AUTHOR    OF 

THE  HISTORY  OF  EUROPEAN  MORALS,   DEMOCRACY  AND  LIBERTY, 
RATIONALISM    IN    EUROPE,    ETC. 


ARRANGED   AND    EDITED   WITH    HISTORICAL 
AND    BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTES 

BY  JAMES  ALBERT  WOODBURN 

PROFESSOR  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY  AND  POLITICS 
IN  INDIANA  UNIVERSITY 


D.   APPLETON   AND  COMPANY,   PUBLISHERS 
NEW   YORK  •:-•  BOSTON  •:•  CHICAGO 


COPYRIGHT,  1898, 
BY  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


E 


LH5 


INTRODUCTION. 


THIS  volume,  as  its  title  page  indicates,  consists 
of  such  parts  of  Mr.  Lecky's  work  The  History  of 
England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  as  relate  to  the 
English  colonies  in  America,  and  the  causes  and 
progress  of  the  American  Revolution.  The  chapter 
on  "  America,  1763-1776,"  which  is  taken  entire,  con- 
tains Mr.  Lecky's  notable  account  of  the  colonial 
controversy  with  the  mother  country,  which  caused 
the  dismemberment  of  the  British  Empire  and  made 
two  nations  of  the  English  race.  To  this  chapter 
have  been  added  Mr.  Lecky's  discussions  of  the  prog- 
ress of  our  Revolutionary  War,  and  of  the  peace  nego- 
tiations which  closed  that  war — the  most  important 
chapter  in  the  history  of  American  diplomacy.  It  is 
believed  that  this  material,  gathered  from  a  volumi- 
nous work,  constitutes  a  volume  of  unity  and  of  logi- 
cal and  historical  sequence,  and  one  of  great  value  as 
a  contribution  to  American  history. 

Mr.  Lecky  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  modern  his- 
torians. The  quality  of  his  historical  writing  is  too 
well  known  to  need  description  here.  He  deals  with 
movements  and  problems  of  history  on  large  and  lib- 


VI  INTRODUCTION. 

eral  lines.  When  he  handles  details  he  does  it  with  a 
power  of  historical  analysis  and  combination  that 
shows  their  significance  and  relieves  confusion.  The 
separate  publication  of  this  volume  is  prompted  by 
the  desire  to  make  convenient  and  easily  accessible 
Mr.  Lecky's  invaluable  work  upon  American  topics. 
The  editor  is  confident  that  those  who  are  interested 
in  the  beginnings  of  our  national  history  will  find 
these  pases  luminous  with  instruction.  The  pursuit 

.TO  -L 

of  history  by  the  general  reader  is  greatly  promoted 
by  such  historical  writing. 

American  history,  like  recent  American  politics,  is 
to  be  studied  in  the  light  of  Europe.  European  in- 
terests and  movements  have  frequently  been  the  domi- 
nant factors  in  events  of  our  national  history,  and  the 
American  citizen's  intelligence  of  that  history  is  too 
meagre  if  he  has  his  knowledge  merely  in  the  study 
of  American  subjects  from  American  schoolbooks 
and  American  authors.  ISTo  doubt  American  journals 
and  schoolbooks  of  a  past  generation — fortunately  it 
is  not  so  true  at  present — have  conveyed  false  and 
exaggerated  conceptions  of  British  despotism  and 
tyranny.  The  reading  of  a  volume  like  Mr.  Lecky's 
will  do  much  properly  to  remove  or  avoid  these  harm- 
ful impressions  while  at  the  same  time  it  will  confirm 
what  is  now  the  conviction  of  all  intelligent  English- 
men and  Americans  alike,  that  the  resistance  of  the 
Americans  to  the  mistaken  policy  of  the  mother 
country  undoubtedly  contributed,  as  Fox  said,  "to 
preserve  the  liberties  of  mankind."  The  intelligent 
reading  of  our  Revolution  should  lead  us  to  see  that, 


INTRODUCTION.  Vll 

while  that  unfortunate  policy  may  have  disturbed,  it 
has  in  no  sense  destroyed  the  essential  unity  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race. 

Mr.  Lecky's  volume  is  also  a  book  to  be  studied. 
The  best  American  universities  and  colleges  have  for 
several  years  offered  extensive  courses  on  various  peri- 
ods of  American  history.  "No  period  is  more  in- 
structive than  the  period  of  our  Revolution.  Though 
there  is  a  tendency  in  historical  study  toward  the  use 
of  the  "  sources,"  and  a  general  belief  that  their  larger 
use  would  be  practicable  and  helpful,  yet  the  great 
body  of  historical  teachers,  even  in  universities  and 
colleges  where  the  sources  are  most  accessible,  still 
believe  that  a  text-book  should  continue  to  be  the 
chief  reliance  for  the  student's  class  work — the  back- 
bone of  his  course. 

Educational  authorities  are  urging  the  wisdom  of 
intensive  courses  of  historical  study.  In  our  best 
high  schools,  in  all  grades  of  study  beyond  our  ele- 
mentary schools,  the  courses  of  historical  study  are 
being  remodelled.  It  is  urged  that  instead  of  cov- 
ering long  stretches  of  history,  merely  making  the 
student's  knowledge  a  little  less  meagre,  longer  and 
more  exhaustive  study  should  be  spent  on  a  briefer 
period.  Special  reference  is  to  be  had  to  the  "  Co- 
lonial Period,"  or  the  "  Eevolutionary  Period,"  or 
the  "Federal  Period."  Thus,  it  is  hoped,  the  stu- 
dent may  be  able  to  learn  some  period  thoroughly, 
and  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  age  that  he  studies. 
He  may  be  able  to  come  to  a  truer  knowledge  of  what 
history  is ;  he  may  be  able,  in  a  measure,  to  deal  with 


Vlll  INTRODUCTION. 

the  sources  of  history,  and  he  may  be  imbued  with  a 
better  historical  sense  and  be  given  a  better  idea  of 
historical  method.  This  volume  is  intended,  then,  to 
supply  this  need — the  need  of  an  extensive  text-book 
upon  a  well-defined  and  important  period  of  our  his- 
tory. It  is  believed  that  teachers  in  American  col- 
leges, academies,  and  high  schools  will  welcome  an 
original  and  illuminating  text-book  for  the  study  of 
the  "  Period  of  the  Eevolution  "  from  such  a  writer 
as  Mr.  Lecky.  Under  the  guidance  of  American 
teachers,  American  students  should  be  greatly  bene- 
fited by  the  study  of  the  struggles  of  the  Revolution 
as  presented  by  a  fair  and  judicial  English  historian, 
one  who  has  other  than  American  interests  and  repu- 
tations to  consider,  and  whose  purpose  is  not  prima- 
rily nor  even  partially  the  vindication  of  the  Ameri- 
can cause.  Such  a  study  will  give  Americans  a  better 
conception  of  the  place  and  importance  of  our  Eevo- 
lution in  the  history  of  the  world,  and  a  truer  appre- 
ciation of  the  permanent  merits  of  that  Eevolution 
and  of  its  promoters  and  participants.  No  greater 
service  can  be  rendered  to  young  students  than  to 
put  within  their  reach  and  to  guide  them  in  the  use 
of  a  volume  of  history  which,  being  good  literature, 
will  at  the  same  time  awaken  intelligence  and  excite 
a  true  historical  taste  and  a  worthy  love  of  learning. 

A  classified  bibliography  and  some  historical  notes 
have  been  included  in  the  volume  for  the  use  of  stu- 
dents. These,  and  the  footnotes  of  Mr.  Lecky,  give 
full  references  to  the  "  sources."  "Wherein  the  author 
has  seemed  unduly  severe  or  hostile  in  his  criticism  of 


INTRODUCTION.  IX 

the  American  cause  or  actors  in  the  Revolution,  it  has 
been  the  aim  of  the  editor,  in  the  notes,  to  point  more 
fully  to  American  authorities  upon  the  same  topics, 
and  at  times  to  quote  from  American  sources  due 
apologies  for  the  American  patriots  and  their  cause. 
It  is,  however,  believed  that  Mr.  Lecky's  pages  them- 
selves will  furnish  ample  defence  for  the  underlying 
and  efficient  causes  of  the  American  Revolution. 

J.  A.  W. 

INDIANA  UNIVERSITY,  BLOOMINGTON, 
July  25,  1898. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE. 

AMONG  the  many  valuable  features  of  Mr.  Lecky's 
volume  are  the  footnotes,  which  constantly  refer  to 
interesting  and  important  authorities  and  sources.  By 
these,  which  will  be  suggestive  to  the  investigator,  the 
author  cites  very  fully  the  authorities  for  his  state- 
ments and  conclusions.  Teachers  whose  classes  have 
access  to  considerable  libraries  may  find  it  profitable 
to  direct  students  to  these  authorities  for  special  read- 
ings and  reports.  In  the  following  bibliography  some 
of  these  authorities  are  mentioned  again.  It  is 
thought,  however,  that  a  classification  of  these  and 
other  sources  may  be  helpful  for  the  student's  pur- 
poses. This  bibliography  is  not  intended  to  be  ex- 
haustive, but  rather  to  suggest  a  select  public  library 
for  the  student's  use  and  some  of  the  most  useful  ref- 
erences upon  the  period  of  the  American  Revolution. 
Most  of  these  authorities,  especially  the  secondary 
ones,  are  easily  obtainable ;  the  others  may  be  found 
in  the  larger  public  libraries. 

I.  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLISH  AUTHORITIES. 

1.  Knox's  Controversy  between  the  Colonies  and  the  Mother  Coun- 

try. 

Probably  the  best  presentation  of  the  English  side  of  the  contro- 
versy. 

2.  Samuel  Johnson's  Taxation  no  Tyranny.    An  Answer  to  the 

Resolutions  and  Address  of  the  American  Congress,  Lon- 
don, 1775. 

xi 


Xll  BIBLIOGEAPHICAL   NOTE. 

3.  Tucker's  Four  Tracts  on  our  Relation  to  the  Colonies. 

4.  Burke's   Speeches:    On  Conciliation  with  America,  and    On 

American  Taxation.  Works,  Payne's  edition,  vol.  i.  See 
also  Burke's  Letter  to  the  Sheriffs  of  Bristol. 

5.  Pitt's  Speech  on  The  Repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act.    See  Goodrich's 

British  Eloquence.  See  also  Chatham's  (Pitt's)  Speeches 
for  Conciliation  with  America,  1774-1775.  Parliamentary 
History.  See  Goodrich's  British  Eloquence  for  North's 
Plan  of  Conciliation. 

6.  Debate  in  the  Commons  on  the  Boston  Port  Bill,  the  Massa- 

chusetts Bill,  and  the  American  Tea  Duty.  Hansard's  Par- 
liamentary History,  vol.  xvii.  pp.  1163-1326  (1771-1774). 
See  also  Hansard's  Parliamentary  History,  vol.  xviii.  pp. 
149-168,  for  Chatham's  speech  on  the  Motion  to  withdraw 
the  Troops  from  Boston.  In  the  Parliamentary  History  for 
the  years  1765-1770  may  easily  be  found  speeches  by  Barre, 
Lord  Camden,  and  others,  on  the  American  controversy  on 
taxation. 

Lord  Mansfield,  then  Chief  Justice  of  England,  in  the  course  of  the 
debates  in  the  House  of  Lords,  gives  the  best  summary  of  the  English 
view  on  representation  in  relation  to  taxation.  See  Adams's  Brtiuk 
Orations. 

7.  Bernard's  Letters.    Letters  sent  to  the  British  Ministry  by 

Governor  Bernard  concerning  the  situation  in  Boston,  which 
caused  Samuel  Adams  or  James  Otis  to  write  A  Vindication 
of  the  Town  of  Boston,  1770.  See  Wells's  Life  of  Samuel 
Adams;  Proceedings  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Soci- 
ety, vol.  i.  p.  485.  (Winsor's  Handbook,  p.  8.) 

8.  Hutchinson's  History  of  Massachusetts,  vol.  iii.,  1750-1774. 

Hutchinson  was  a  native  American  and  the  Colonial  Governor  ot 
Massachusetts,  but  he  writes  as  a  partisan,  though  a  fair  and  judicial 
one,  on  the  side  of  the  English  Government.  Professor  Moses  Coit 
Tyler  speaks  ol  Hutchinson  as  "  the  ablest  historical  writer  produced 
in  America  prior  to  the  nineteenth  century."  His  three  volumes  and 
his  Collection  of  Original  Papers  have  been  described  by  Dr.  William 
F.  Poole  as  "  the  four  most  precious  books  touching  that  portion  of 
American  history."  "  Prior  to  1765  Hutchinson  was  incomparably 
the  most  popular  and  the  most  influential  statesman  in  New  England, 
and  from  the  year  of  the  Stamp  Act  until  that  of  his  own  death  in 
London  fifteen  years  afterward,  was  the  most  powerful  American 
statesman  in  the  ranks  of  the  Koyalist  party."  (Tyler's  The  Literary 
History  of  the  American  Revolution,  vol.  ii.  p.  395.) 

II.  CONTEMPORARY  AMERICAN  AUTHORITIES. 

1.  Journals  of  the  American  Congress.     From  1774  to  1788. 
4  vols. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE.  Xlll 

2.  Force's  American  Archives. 

A  Documentary  History  of  the  Causes  and  Accomplishment  of  the 
American  Revolution — a  Collection  of  Authentic  Records,  State  Papers, 
Debates,  Letters,  and  other  Notices  of  Public  Affairs.  The  author  de- 
signed a  documentary  history  of  America  from  1492  to  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution  in  1789,  in  six  series  of  several  volumes  each. 
"  In  1833  Congress  provided  for  the  publication  of  the  Fourth  and 
Fifth  Series ;  out  when  the  third  volume  of  the  Fifth  Series  was 
printed  the  appropriation  was  exhausted.  The  publication  has  not 
been  continued.  The  volumes  printed  cover  only  the  period  from 
the  beginning  of  colonial  discontents  (1763)  to  December,  1776." 
(Adams's  Manual  of  Historical  Literature.)  In  these  volumes  of  the 
Fourth  and  Fifth  S'eries  may  be  found  documents,  speeches,  and  pro- 
ceedings on  all  matters  touching  the  causes  of  the  Revolution. 

3.  Alinon,  J.     Prior  Documents.     "A  Collection  of  Interesting 

Authentic  Papers,  relative  to  the  Dispute  between  Great 
Britain  and  America,  showing  the  Causes  and  Progress  of 
that  Misunderstanding,"  from  1764-1775. 

4.  Almon,  J.      The  Remembrancer,  or  Impartial  Repository  of 

Public  Events.    12  vols.    From  1775-1781. 

5.  Adams,  John.     Works,  with  Life,  Notes,  etc.,  edited  by  Charles 

Francis  Adams.  10  vols.  Especially,  A  History  of  the  Dis- 
pute with  America,  from  its  Origin  in  1754  to  the  Present 
Time  (1774),  vol.  iv.  pp.  3-177. 

This  is  a  series  of  papers  under  the  name  of  Novanglus,  in  which 
Adams  gives  with  sharpness  and  force  the  Whig  argument  against 
the  Tories,  making  an  uncompromising  defence  of  the  Revolution  and 
its  principles.  An  excellent  source  lor  a  study  of  the  spirit  of  the 
Revolutionary  leaders  and  their  times. 

6.  Franklin,   Benjamin.     Works,  edited  by  John   Bigelow.     10 

vols.  Also,  Sparks's  edition  of  Franklin's  Works.  Notice 
especially,  The  Causes  of  American  Discontents,  Examina- 
tion before  the  House  of  Commons,  How  to  reduce  an  Em- 
pire, Letter  on  American  G-ratitude. 

7.  Washington,  George.     Writings,-  edited  by  Worthington  C. 

Ford.    14  vols. 

8.  Jefferson,  Thomas.     Writings,  edited  by  Paul  Leicester  Ford. 

10  vols. 

9.  Adams,  Samuel.     Works,  edited  by  Harry  Alonzo   Gushing. 

4  vols.     (In  preparation.) 

10.  Madison,  James.     Works,  edited  by  Gaillard  Hunt. 

11.  Paine,  Thomas.     Writings,  edited  by  Moncure  D.  Conway. 

4  vols.    Especially  Paine's  Common  Sense  and  The  Crisis. 
There  are  other  editions  of  Paine's  political  writings.    Con- 
sult also  Conway's  Life  of  Paine.    2  vols. 
"Common  /Sense  burst  upon  the  press  with  an  effect  which  has 

rarely  been  produced  by  types  and  paper  in  any  age  or  country." 

(Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  quoted  by  Conway.) 


XIV  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE. 

12.  Dickinson's  Farmer's  Letters. 

A  series  of  essays  published  in  the  Pennsylvania  Chronicle  by  John 
Diokinson,  a  lawyer  of  Philadelphia,  "  which  soon  attained  a  greater 
reptltation  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  than  had  been  reached  by 
any  previous  production  in  American  literature"  (Tyler,  Literary 
History  of  the  American  Revolution,  vol.  ii.  p.  26).  The  Letters  were 
twelve  in  number,  the  last  appearing  on  February  15, 1768.  They 
formed  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  influential  of  the  pamphlets  for  the 
American  cause.  Dickinson  was  the  author  of  the  following  notable 
state  papers  of  the  Revolution :  Resolutions  in  Relation  to  the  Stamp 
Act,  adopted  by  the  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania,  1765 ;  Declaration 
of  Rights  and  Petition  to  the  King,  adopted  by  the  Stamp  Act  Con- 
gress, 1765;  Resolves  of  the  Convention  of  Pennsylvania;  Instruc- 
tions to  the  Representatives  in  Assembly;  Essay  on  the  Constitutional 
Power  of  Great  Britain  over  the  Colonies  in  America,  in  1774 ;  Ad- 
dress of  Congress  to  the  Inhabitants  of  the  Province  of  Quebec,  1774 ; 
Petition  of  Congress  to  the  King^s  Most  Excellent  Majesty,  1774,  and 
the  second  Petition  to  the  King,  in  1775;  The  Declaration  ly  the 
Representatives  of  the  United  Colonies  of  North  America,  now  met  in 
Congress  at  Philadelphia,  setting  forth  the  Causes  and  Necessity  of 
their  talcing  up  Arms,  1775 — "  a  powerful  and  noble  paper" ;  Instruc- 
tions of  Pennsylvania  to  its  Representatives  in  Congress,  November, 
1775,  and  June,  1776 ;  Revision  of  the  Mil  of  Rights  for  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania,  July,  1776 ;  the  first  draft  of  the  Articles  of  Confed- 
eration, 1775.  The  authorship  of  these  papers  has  justly  given  D'ick- 
insoii  the  title  of  "  the  Penman  of  the  Revolution."  It  is  claimed  for 
him  by  Paul  Leicester  Ford,  the  editor  of  his  Writings,  that  in  the 
literature  of  the  Revolution  Dickinson  was  "as  pre-eminent  as  "Wash- 
ington in  war,  Franklin  in  diplomacy,  and  Morris  in  finance."  See 
Tyler's  Literary  History  of  the  Revolution,  vol.  ii.  chap.  xxv. ;  Writ- 
ings of  John  Dickinson, 'edited  by  P.  L.  Ford,  an  edition  included 
among  the  issues  of  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania,  still  in 
process  of  publication  ;  The  Life  and  Times  of  Dickinson,  by  Charles 
J.  Stille ;  Magazine  of  American  History,  vol.  viii.  pp.  514-516,  and 
vol.  x.  p.  223,  cited  by  Tyler;  Fiske's  The  American  Revolution, 
vol.  i.  p.  47. 

13.  Otis's  Rights  of  the  Colonies  Asserted  and  Proved  and  his 

Speech  on  the  Writs  of  Assistance. 

-    (a)  Force's  American  Archives,  Fourth  Series,  vol.  i. 

(&)  Tudor's  Life  of  Otis. 

(c)  John  Adams's  Letter  to  Tudor,  Niles's  Register,  vol. 
xiv.  p.  139. 

14.  Stephen  Hopkins's  Rights  of  the  Colonies  Examined,  1765. 

"  One  of  the  ablest  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  temperate  expressions 
of  the  stand  taken  by  the  colonies "  (Winsor).  Found  only  in  re- 
prints, 

15.  Jay,  John.     Works.      Especially,   Address    to    the    British 

People,  adopted  by  the  Congress  of  1774,  and  On  the  Peace 
Negotiations  of  1782. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE.  XV 

16.  The  State  papers  of  the  Continental  Congress :  the  Declara- 

tion of  Rights,  by  the  Congress  of  1765 ;  the  Virginia  Re- 
solves ;  the  Declaration  of  Rights,  by  the  Congress  of  1774 ; 
the  Address  to  the  People  of  Great  Britain  ;  the  Articles  of 
Association  ;  the  Declaration  of  Independence  ;  the  Articles 
of  Confederation,  and  other  papers,  are  reprinted,  in  part,  in 
the  Old  South  Studies  (Heath  &  Co.)  and  in  the  American 
History  Leaflets  (Lovell  &  Co.,  New  York).  They  may  also 
be  found  in  full  in  Force's  American  Archives,  and,  in  part,  in 
the  following. 

17.  Niles's  Principles  and  Acts  of  the  Revolution.    Speeches, 

Orations,  Proceedings  of  the  Revolutionary  Period.  The 
Journal  of  the  Stamp  Act  Congress,  1765,  with  the  instruc- 
tions to  and  form  of  appointment  of  the  Delegates,  and  their 
Declaration  of  Rights,  may  be  found  in  pp.  155-168,  in  the 
Centennial  Edition  of  1876.  The  full  Table  of  Contents  will 
indicate  much  interesting  material. 

18.  Hart's  American  History  told  by   Contemporaries,  vol.   ii. 

Selections  from  the  Sources,  being  brief  extracts  from  Frank- 
lin, Adams,  Otis,  Quincy,  Pitt,  Walpole,  Dickinson,  and 
others. 

19.  In  the  study  of  the  contemporary  material  on  the  Revolution, 

the  student  should  use  Professor  Moses  Coit  Tyler's  Literary 
History  of  the  American  Revolution,  2  vols.  This  late  and 
important  work  is  devoted  largely,  in  its  subject-matter,  to 
the  political  and  historical  controversy  of  the  Revolution, 
embodying  a  contemporary  record  of  the  conflict.  The 
work  is  of  special  value  in  giving  very  fully  the  arguments  of 
the  Loyalists.  It  sets  forth,  also,  the  work  of  Otis,  the 
Adamses,  Paine,  Freneau,  Stephen  Hopkins,  Dulany,  Dickin- 
son, and  other  American  controversialists.  The  chapters  on 
"  The  Prelude  of  Political  Debate  "  and  "  The  Stamp  Act  as 
a  Stimulant  to  Political  Discussion  "  (vol.  i.)  will  indicate  the 
importance  of  this  work  to  the  student  of  our  Revolutionary 
history.  These  volumes  and  their  subject  are  reviewed  in 
a  valuable  article  on  "  The  American  Revolution,"  by  Pro- 
fessor H.  L.  Osgood,  of  Columbia  University,  in  the  Political 
Science  Quarterly  for  March,  1898.  There  is  a  very  complete 
bibliography  of  the  literature  of  the  Revolution  in  the  latter 
part  of  Volume  II.  of  Professor  Tyler's  work. 

III.  SECONDARY  ENGLISH  AUTHORITIES. 

1.  Mahon's  History  of  England,  vols.  v.  and  vi.  For  the  chap- 
ter on  the  colonies  and  treatment  of  the  Stamp  Act,  see  vol. 
v.  ch.  xliii. 


XVI  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE. 

2.  May's   Constitutional  History  of  England,  vol.  ii.    Chapter 

xvii.  on  "  British  Colonies  and  Dependencies,"  pp.  510-540 
(Edition  of  1863). 

3.  Doyle,  John  Andrew.     The  English  in  America,  3  vols.    Lon- 

don, 1882, 1887. 

4.  Seeley's  The  Expansion  of  England.    Chapter  on  "  The  Old 

Colonial  System." 

5.  Green's  History  of  the  English  People,  vol.  iv. 

6.  Grahame's  History  of  America  until  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 

pendence, vol.  ii.  pp.  348-530  (1845).    A  Scotch  author. 

7.  Ludlow's  The  War  of  American.  Independence.    English  Epoch 

Series.    A  valuable  little  volume. 

8.  Caldecott,  English  Colonization  and  Empire. 

9.  Massey's  History  of  England  during  the  Reign  of  George  III., 

3  vols.  London,  1855.  A  Whig  view.  Especially  chs.  vi.- 
viii.  vol.  i. 

10.  Adolphus's  History  of  England,  from  the  Accession  to  the 

Decease  of  George  III.,  7  vols.  (1840),  chs.  vii.,  ix.,  xiii.  A 
Tory  view.  Adolphus  maintains  that  American  rebellion 
was  fomented  by  religious  influences  and  bodies,  especially  by 
Presbyterian  synods.  See  p.  184  et  seq.,  vol  i. 

11.  Kingsford's  History  of  Canada,  9  vols.    Especially  vols.  v. 

vi.  vii. 

IV.  AMERICAN  AND  OTHER  SECONDARY  AUTHORITIES. 

1.  Pitkin's  Political  and  Civil  History  of  America,  vol.  i.  p.  155 

to  vol.  ii.  p.  179.    A  valuable  collection  of  material. 

2.  Ramsay,  David.    History  of  the  American  Revolution,  2  vols., 

1816.  "  One  of  the  most  substantial  and  worthy  accounts 
of  our  Revolutionary  period."  (Adams's  Manual.) 

3.  Palfrey's  History  of  New  England,  vol.  v.  book  vi.  chs.  i.-xiii. 

4.  Winsor's  Narrative  and  Critical  History  of  America,  vol.  vi. 

(a)  The  Revolution  Impending,  by  Mellen  Chamberlain, 

followed  by  a  Critical  Essay  by  Mr.  Winsor,  giving 
a  copious  list  of  authorities,  pp.  1-112. 

(b)  The  Conflict  Precipitated,  by  Justin  Winsor. 

(c)  The  Sentiment  of  Independence,  Its  Growth  and  Con- 

summation, by  George  E.  Ellis,  pp.  231-274. 

(d)  The  West  from  the  Treaty  of  Peace  with  France,  1763, 

to  the  treaty  of  Peace  with  England,  1783,  by  Wil- 
liam Frederick  Poole,  pp.  685-747.  A;nd  other  arti- 
cles on  different  phases  of  the  Revolution. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE.  XVU 

5.  Fiske,  John.     The  American  Revolution,  2  vols. 

6.  Frothingham's  Rise  of  the  Republic  of  the  United  States. 

7.  Bancroft,  George.    History  of  the  United  States,  10  vols. 

8.  Tucker's  History  of  the  United  States,  4  vols.,  1841.    Chiefly 

political. 

9.  Hildreth,  Richard.     History  of  the  United  States,  6  vols. 

10.  Bryant  and  Gay.     Popular  History  of  the    United  States, 

4  vols. 

11.  Curtis,  George  Ticknor.    Constitutional  History  of  the  United 

States,  vol.  i. 

12.  Balch's  The  French  in  America. 

13.  Campbell,  Douglas.    The  Puritans  in  England,  Holland,  and 

America,  2  vols. 

14.  Sabine's  The  Loyalists  of  the  American  Revolution,  2  vols., 

1864. 

15.  Wells's  Life  of  Samuel  Adams,  3  vols. 

16.  Hosmer,  J.  K.    Life  of  Samuel  Adams.    Statesmen  Series. 

17.  Tyler's  Life  of  Patrick  Henry  ;  Wirt's  Life  of  Henry. 

18.  Bigelow's  Life  of  Franklin,  as  told  in  his  Writings,  3  vols. 

19.  Parton's  Life  of  Franklin. 

20.  Parton's  Life  of  Jefferson;    Randall's  Life  of  Jefferson; 

Tucker's  Life  ofJefferson;  Morse's  Jefferson. 

21.  Hart's  Formation  of  the  Union  (Longmans'  Epochs  of  Amer- 

ican History}. 

22.  Sloane's  The  French    War  and  the  Revolution  (Scribner's 

Epochs  of  American  History). 

23.  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington. 

24.  "Woodburn's  Causes  of  the  American  Revolution  (Johns  Hop- 

kins University  Studies,  Tenth  Series,  No.  12).  A  brief  sum- 
mary of  the  political  controversy  between  the  colonies  and 
the  mother  country. 

25.  Greene,  G.  W.    Historical  View  of  the  American  Revolution. 

26.  Lossing's  Field  Book  of  the  American  Revolution. 

27.  Channing's  United  States  of  America,  1765-1865;  Channing's 

Students'  History  of  the  United  States;  McLaughlin's 
History  of  the  American  Nation  ;  Montgomery's  Students' 
History  of  the  United  States;  McMaster's  School  History  of 
the  United  States. 


XV111  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE. 


V.  REFERENCE  BOOKS. 

1.  Winsor's  Reader's  Handbook  of  the  American  Revolution. 

A  small  volume  containing  an  analysis  of  the  events  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, with  reference  to  the  main  sources  of  information  on  each.  "  It 
is  like  a  continuous  footnote  to  all  histories  of  the  American  Revolu- 
tion. It  points  out  sources,  but  it  includes  also  the  second-hand 
authorities." 

2.  Winsor's  Narrative  and  Critical  History  of  America,  vol.  vi. 

The  student  will  find  here  abundant  references  to  all  the  sources 
and  secondary  authorities. 

3.  Charming  and  Hart's  Guide  to  American  History,  pp.  288-008. 

A  very  useful  student's  guide  to  the  principal  material. 

4.  Charles  Kendall  Adams's  Manual  of  Historical  Literature. 

Contains  a  brief  characterization  of  the  principal  authorities. 

5.  Mace's  Manual  of  American  History. 

6.  Tyler's  The  Literary  History  of  the  American  Revolution, 

2  vols. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

AMERICA,  1763-1776. 

PAQB 

Effects  of  the  Peace  of  Paris  on  the  American  colonies      .  1 

Predictions  of  their  separation  from  England        .         .    .  2 

Question  of  the  cession  of  Canada 3 

Impossibility  of  retaining  the  colonies  by  force      .        .     .  6 

Strong  loyalty  of  the  colonies 8 

Their  independence  of  each  other 10 

New  England 13 

The  Middle  States 18 

Virginia 24 

The  other  Southern  colonies 20 

Intellectual  and  material  condition  of  the  colonies     .         .  30 

Their  moral  and  political  condition 34 

Their  relations  to  the  mother  country         .         .         .         .38 

And  to  the  Crown 41 

Commercial  restrictions 42 

American  smuggling 46 

'  Writs  of  assistance  ' 48 

Elements  of  dissension  .         .         .         .         .                  .    .  49 

Policy  of  Grenville. 

Eevision  of  the  trade  laws .52 

Establishment  of  an  army  in  the  colonies      .         .         .     ,  66 

Determination  to  tax  the  colonies 59 


XX  CONTENTS. 


Earlier  proposals  to  tax  America   ......  01 

Arguments  in  favour  of  it  .......  62 

Franklin  on  a  colonial  army  .......  67 

The  Stamp  Act  .....        .        .        .        .  6b 

Speech  of  Barre     .........  74 

Taxation  and  representation       ......  75 

Commercial  concessions.     Quartering  Act     .        .        .     .  79 

General  resistance  to  the  Stamp  Act  .....  80 

Impossibility  of  enforcing  it  .        .        .        •        .        .    .  84 

The  Rockingham  Ministry. 

General  indifference  to  American  affairs    ....  84 

Distress  in  the  trading  towns          ......  86 

Meeting  of  Parliament  (December  1765).  The  Opposition  86 
Pitt  justifies  the  Americans  .  .  .  •  .  .  .89 
Government  repeals  the  Stamp  Act,  but  asserts  the  right 

to  tax          .......        .        .     .  93 

Necessity  of  the  Declaratory  Act         .....  94 

New  revision  of  the  commercial  laws    .         .          .         .     .  97 

Opinion  in  America    ........  99 

Governor  Bernard          ........  101 

New  York  refuses  to  obey  the  Mutiny  Act.  '  The  Farmer's 

Letters  '  .......        .        .        .104 

The  Chatham  Ministry. 

Irritation  in  England  against  America  .....  105 

Charles  Townshend  proposes  to  tax  America     .         .         .  107 

Suspends  the  New  York  Assembly  ......  110 

Establishes  a  new  Board  of  Customs  .....  110 

Imposes  new  duties  for  purposes  of  revenue  .        .        ..110 

Review  of  Townshend's  policy     .         .         .         .         .         .  Jll 

Reception  of  Townshend's  measures  in  America    .         .     .  113 

Death  of  Townshend  (September  1767)  .....  115 

Changes  in  the  Ministry.     Ascendency  of  North    .         .     .  117 
Hillsborough  censures  the  Massachusetts  Circular     .        .117 

Growing  spirit  of  insurrection         ......  118 

Samuel  Adams   .........  119 

Attitude  of  Massachusetts       .......  123 

Attitude  of  the  English  Parliament,  1768  and  1769    .        .  123 

Revival  of  a  law  for  trying  traitors  in  England      .         .     .  124 

Determination  to  repeal  all  the  duties  except  that  on  tea  .  125 

Recall  of  Bernard.     Submission  of  New  York     .         .         .  126 

The  Boston  massacre     ........  127 

Acquittal  of  the  soldiers.    American  humanity  .        .        .130 

The  tea  duty  .         .        .  .      .......  133 

Abandonment  of  the  non-importation  agreements      .        .  135 


CONTENTS.  XXI 

PAGB 

The  destruction  of  the  «  Gaspee  ' 136 

Measure  to  protect  the  King's  ships.     Committees  of  cor- 
respondence          138 

Benjamin  Franklin 138 

Sends  Hutchinson's  letters  to  America           .         .         .     .  145 

Wedderburn's  invective 150 

The  Boston  tea  ships 153 

Impeachment  of  Oliver 154 

English  opinion  on  the  American  Question. 

Tucker  advocates  the  cession  of  America       .        .        .    .  154 

Adam  Smith 156 

Chatham «...  159 

Burke 160 

Parliament  in  favour  of  coercion 165 

Closing  of  Boston  harbour 165 

Suspension  of  the  Charter  of  Massachusetts  .         .         .     .  166 

Soldiers  to  be  tried  in  England 167 

General  Gage  made  Governor  of  Massachusetts.    Quarter- 
ing Act       167 

The  Quebec  Act 168 

The  other  colonies  support  Boston 173 

Numerous  riots 175 

Proclamation  of  Gage 179 

The  Congress  at  Philadelphia  (September  1774)         .        .  180 
General  arming.  How  far  Americans  wished  for  indepen- 
dence    185 

Illusions  in  America  and  in  England          ....  188 

Divided  opinion  in  America 19.1 

The  loyalists 192 

Enrolment  of  an  American  army.  Capture  of  Fort  William  194 

English  Parliament  meets,  November  1774    .         .         .     .  195 

New  efforts  of  conciliation  by  Chatham      ....  196 

By  Burke,  Hartley,  &c 197 

Parliament  cuts  off  the  trade  of  America.     Increases  the 

army  at  Boston 198 

Conciliatory  measure  of  North 199 

Battle  of  Lexington,  April  19, 1775 201 

Battle  of  Bunker's  Hill,  June  17,  1775 203 

Congress  of  Philadelphia,  1775 205 

"Washington  appointed  commander.  His  life  and  character  206 

Capture  of  Ticonderoga.    Invasion  of  Canada       .         .     .  214 
Death  of  Montgomery.    American  retreat  .         .         .         .216 

Lord  Dunmore  in  Virginia 216 

Proceedings  in  the  Middle  and  Southern  colonies       .         .  217 

The  negroes  and  Indians 219 


XX11  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The  English  party  in  America %  2  2 

Misgivings  in  America .  223 

The  army  of  Washington     .         ..         .         ..         .226 

Dilatoriness  of  Gage        .         . 230 

Replaced  by  Howe.     Situation  of  the  Americans,  December 

1775 232 

Boston  evacuated,  March  17,  1776 234 

Paine's  '  Common  Sense  ' 234 

Motives  leading  to  separation .    .  235 

The  French  Alliance    . 237 

Difficulty  of  England  in  raising  soldiers 240 

Enlistment  of  German  mercenaries 243 

Produces  the  Declaration  of  Independence       .         .        .     .  244 


CHAPTER  II. 
America,  1776. 

American  forces  at  New  York fc  248 

Advance  of  Howe 249 

New  York  taken  Sept.  15     .        .     *.     *'.,'..         .      ..250 

Americans  propose  to  burn  it  . 250 

Fire  at  New  York 252 

Demoralisation  of  the  American  army 253 

Loyalist  movements 255 

Causes  of  their  impotence 258 

Washington  retreats  to  New  Jersey 261 

English  take  Crown  Point  and  recover  Lake  Champlain  .     .  262 
Their    unsuccessful   attack   on    Charleston.     They   occupy 

Rhode  Island .     .  262 

Employment  of  Indians 263 

Creation  of  an  American  navy 266 

Deplorable  condition  of  Washington's  army          .         .         .268 

Capture  of  Lee 271 

Washington  passes  the  Delaware 272 

Brilliant  prospects  of  the  English 274 

Congress  fly  to  Baltimore.     Letter  of  Robert  Morris     .         .  276 

Incapacity  of  Howe 278 

Washington  surprises  Trenton 280 

Revulsion  of  feeling  against  the  English           .         .         .     .  280 

Misconduct  of  English  soldiers 281 

The  English  retire 282 

Enlistment  of  the  new  American  army         ....  283 

Impotence  of  Congress 285 

Paper  money 287 

Regulation  of  prices 290 

Paper  made  legal  tender 291 


CONTENTS.  XX111 

PAGE 

Moral  effects  of  these  measures 291 

General  prospects  of  the  war 294 

Foreign  intervention  necessary  to  American  success          .     .  296 

Policy  of  France. 

Memorial  of  Vergennes 296 

Memorial  of  Turgot 299 

French  subsidise  the  Americans  ...'...  301 

American  commissioners  at  Paris     .         .         .         .  .  302 

Continental  opinion  generally  in  favour  of  the  Americans     .  304 

French  public  opinion 305 

Enthusiasm  for  Franklin 307 

Marie  Antoinette  and  the  Americans 309 

Foreign  enlistments  for  America      .         .         .         .  ^     .     .  310 

America,  1777. 

Difficulties   of  Washington  in  New  Jersey.     State   of  his 

army 313 

Predatory  expeditions.     Howe  marches  on  Philadelphia  .     .  316 
Battle  of  Brandy  wine.     Occupation  of  Philadelphia      .         .317 

Fresh  English  successes.     Pennsylvanian  loyalty      .         .     .  318 

Winter  at  Valley  Forge 319 

Burgoyne  made  Commander  of  the  Northern  army  .         .     .  321 
His  speech  to  the  Indians.     Advance  on  Ticonderoga  .         .322 

Capture  of  Ticonderoga.     Flight  of  the  Americans  .     .  323 

Growing  difficulties  of  Burgoyne  .  .         .         .  324  • 

Battle  of  Stillwater          .         .         .         .  '      .         .         .     .  325 

Capitulation  of  Saratoga 327 

Leads  at  once  to  the  French  alliance 327 

England,  1776-1778. 

Popularity  of  the  war  at  the  close  of  1776   ....  329 

Attempt  to  burn  dockyards 329 

Despondency  of  the.  Whigs 331 

Their  open  advocacy  of  the  American  caus3     .         .         .     .  332 

Uncompromising  attitude  of  the  King  .         .         .         .         .  336 

Conduct  of  North 338 

Speech  of  Chatham 341 

Overtures  to  Franklin.     North's  conciliatory  measures     .     .  342 

Three  English  commissioners  sent  to  America      .         .         .  346 

England  and  France  at  war 347 

General  desire  for  Chatham 348 

Determination  of  the  King  not  to  accept  him  .         .         .     .  350 

Compared  with  his  attitude  towards  Fox  in  1804          .         .  352 

Death  of  Chatham,  May  1788 354 


XXIV  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

How  regarded  by  contemporary  statesmen  .         .         .         .855 

Growth  of  the  military  spirit 356 

1778-1779. 

The  Mischianza 358 

Evacuation  of  Philadelphia 369 

Failure  of  the  Franco-American  expedition  against  Rhode 

Island 360 

Other  expeditions  in  1788 361 

Disputes  in  the  American  army 362 

Half-pay 362 

Yiolation  of  the  Convention  of  Saratoga  ....  364 

English  conduct  the  war  more  fiercely 366 

Despair^of  the  loyalists 368 

American  humanity  .  .  ^ 369 

Jealousy  between  the  Americans  and  the  French.  Projected 

invasion  of  Canada :/*  ...  370 

Distress  in  America.  Rise  of  prices  .  .  .  .  .374 

Vergennes  fears  that  the  Revolution  will  fail  .  .  .  .  375 


CHAPTER  III. 

Paul  Jones 378 

Effects  of  the  depreciation  of  American  paper          .         .     .  379 

English  devastations  in  Virginia  and  Connecticut         .         .  381 

Americans  attack  the  Six  nations 382 

War  in  the  South.     State  of  opinion 383 

French  and  Americans  fail  before  Savannah    .  ,  384 


1780. 


English  take  Charleston 385 

Subjugation  of  South  Carolina 386 

Battle  of  Camden.     Surprise  of  Sumpter      ....  388 

Severe  treatment  of  insurgents 389 

Failure  of  the  English  invasion  of  North  Carolina         .         .  390 

The  Northern  army.    Complaints  of  Washington     .         .     .  391 

Discontent  and  discouragement  of  the  Americans          .         .  394 

The  Revolution  completely  dependent  on  France      .         .     .  398 

Arrival  of  the  French  fleet  at  Newport         ....  399 

Congress  jealous  of  the  army 401 

Treason  of  Lee 402 

Treason  of  Arnold 403 

Execution  of  Major  Andre 414 

Conduct  of  Washington 418 


CONTENTS.  XXV 

PAGE 

Conclusion  of  the  American  campaign  of  1780  .  .  .  419 
New  measures  for  enlisting  soldiers  ,  .  »  .  .421 
Partial  bankruptcy  of  America 421 


1781. 


Tendencies  toward  peace      .         .         ...         .        .  425 

Mission  of  John  Adams 426 

Proposals  of  Vergennes 427 

King  resolved  not  to  yield 428 

Gradual  change  of  sentiment  in  the  country          .         .         .430 

The  economical  reform  question.     Public  meetings          .     .  432 

Dunning's  resolution  in  1780 433 

Vacillation  of  Parliament 434 

Mutiny  of  the  Pennsylvania  line 434 

Mutiny  of  the  New  Jersey  troops 436 

Battle  of  Cowpens 437 

Savage  character  of  the  Southern  war 439 

Arnold  in  Virginia 441 

Washington's  design  on  New  York 443 

Great  depression  of  the  Americans 444 

Generosity  of  France 447 

Predatory  war  in  Virginia 448 

The  English  at  Yorktown 450 

Washington  and  Rochambeau  march  to  Virginia .         .         .451 

De  Grasse  enters  the  Chesapeake 452 

Destruction  of  New  London 453 

Surrender  of  Yorktown 454 

Arrival  of  the  news  in  England 456 

Long  succession  of  disasters    .         .         .         .         .         .     .  457 

Resignation  of  North  (March  20) 458 

Despair  of  the  King .  458 


CHAPTER  IV. 

State  of  affairs  in  America,  1782 459 

Disaffection  in  the  American  army 461 

Financial  difficulties  in  America 463 

General  desire  for  peace 464 

Preliminary  articles  of  peace  with  France  and  Spain     .         .  465 

Preliminary  articles  of  peace  with  the  United  States         .     .  466 

Differences  between  the  Americans  and  French     .         .         .  469 

The  fisheries.     Canada 470 

The  Mississippi  boundary 471 


XXVl  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The    American  Commissioners  sign   the   preliminaries    se- 
cretly             474 

Apologies  of  Franklin  .        .         .        .         .         .         .476 

Motives  of  the  French  in  the  negotiation          .         .         .     .  478 

Effect  of  the  secret  signature 479 

Summary  of  the  results  of  the  war 479 

The  loyalists 480 

Compensated  by  England 484 

NOTES          .         .         . 486 

INDEX  ,     503 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND 

IN   THE 

EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY 


CHAPTER  I.1 

AMERICA,    1763-1776. 

AT  the  time  of  the  Peace  of  Paris  in  1763,  the  thirteen 
American  colonies  which  were  afterwards  detached  from 
the  English  Crown  contained,  according  to  the  best 
computation,  about  a  million  and  a  half  freemen,  and 
their  number  probably  slightly  exceeded  two  millions 
at  the  time  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  No 
part  of  the  British  Empire  had  gained  so  largely  by  the 
late  war  and  by  the  ministry  of  Pitt.  The  expulsion  of 
the  French  from  Canada  and  of  the  Spaniards  from 
Florida,  by  removing  for  ever  the  danger  of  foreign 
interference,  had  left  the  colonists  almost  absolute 
masters  of  their  destinies,  and  had  dispelled  the  one 
dark  cloud  which  hung  over  their  future.  No  serious 
danger  any  longer  menaced  them.  No  limits  could  be 
assigned  to  their  expansion.  Their  exultation  was  un- 
bounded, and  it  showed  itself  in  an  outburst  of  genuine 
loyalty.  The  name  of  Pittsburg  given  to  the  fortress 
erected  where  Fort  Duquesne  had  once  stood  attested 
the  gratitude  of  America  to  the  minister  to  whom  she 

1  Chapter  XL  Lecky's  History  of  England  in  the  Eiyhieenth  Century. 


2      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

owed  so  much.  Massachusetts,  the  foremost  of  the  New 
England  States,  voted  a  costly  monument  in  West- 
minster Abbey  to  Lord  Howe,  who  had  fallen  in  the 
conquest  of  Canada.  The  assembly  of  the  same  State 
in  a  congratulatory  address  to  the  Governor  declared  that 
without  the  assistance  of  the  parent  State  they  must 
have  fallen  a  prey  to  the  power  of  France,  that  without 
the  compensation  granted  to  them  by  Parliament  the 
burdens  of  the  war  would  have  been  insupportable,  that 
without  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  of  peace  all  their 
successes  would  have  been  delusive.  In  an  address  to 
the  King  they  repeated  the  same  acknowledgment, 
and  pledged  themselves,  in  terms  to  which  later  events 
gave  a  strange  significance,  to  demonstrate  their 
gratitude  by  every  possible  testimony  of  duty  and 
loyalty.1 

Several  acute  observers  had  already  predicted  that 
the  triumph  of  England  would  be  soon  followed  by  the 
revolt  of  her  colonies.  I  have  quoted  in  a  former 
chapter  the  remarkable  passage  in  which  the  Swedish 
traveller,  Kalm,  contended  in  1748  that  the  presence 
of  the  French  in  Canada,  by  making  the  English 
colonists  depend  for  their  security  on  the  support  of  the 
mother  country,  was  the  main  cause  of  the  submission 
of  the  colonies.  In  his  '  Notes  upon  England/  which 
were  probably  written  about  1730,  Montesquieu  had 
dilated  upon  the  restrictive  character  of  the  English 
commercial  code,  and  had  expressed  his  belief  that 
England  would  be  the  first  nation  abandoned  by  her 
colonies.  A  few  years  later,  Argenson,  who  has  left 
some  of  the  most  striking  political  predictions  upon 
record,  foretold  in  his  Memoirs  that  the  English  colonies 
in  America  would  one  day  rise  against  the  mother 


1  Grahame's     Hist,     of    the      chinson's  Hist,  of  Massachusetts 
United  States,  iv.  94, 95.   Hut-       Bay  from  1749  to  1774,  p.  101. 


CH.  xi.  PREDICTIONS   OF   AMERICAN  REVOLT.  O 

country,  that  they  would  form  themselves  into  a  re- 
public, and  that  they  would  astonish  the  world  by  their 
prosperity.  In  a  discourse  delivered  before  the  Sorbonne 
in  1750  Turgot  compared  colonies  to  fruits  which  only 
remain  on  the  stem  till  they  have  reached  the  period  of 
maturity,  and  he  prophesied  that  America  would  some 
day  detach  herself  from  the  parent  tree.  The  French 
ministers  consoled  themselves  for  the  Peace  of  Paris  by 
the  reflection  that  the  loss  of  Canada  was  a  sure  prelude 
to  the  independence  of  the  colonies ;  and  Vergennes, 
the  sagacious  French  ambassador  at  Constantinople, 
predicted  to  an  English  traveller,  with  striking  accuracy, 
the  events  that  would  occur.  '  England/  he  said,  *  will 
soon  repent  of  having  removed  the  only  check  that  could 
keep  her  colonies  in  awe.  They  stand  no  longer  in 
need  of  her  protection.  She  will  call  on  them  to  con- 
tribute towards  supporting  the  burdens  they  have  helped 
to  bring  on  her,  and  they  will  answer  by  striking  off  all 
dependence.' l 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Englishmen  were 
wholly  blind  to  this  danger.  One  of  the  ablest  advo- 
cates of  the  retention  of  Canada  was  the  old  Lord  Bath, 
who  published  a  pamphlet  on  the  subject  which  had  a 
very  wide  influence  and  circulation ; 2  but  there  were  a 
few  politicians  who  maintained  that  it  would  be  wiser 
to  restore  Canada  and  to  retain  Guadaloupe,  with 
perhaps  Martinico  and  St.  Lucia.  This  view  was  sup- 
ported with  distinguished  talent  in  an  anonymous  reply 
to  Lord  Bath,  which  is  said  to  have  been  written  b) 
William  Burke,  the  friend  and  kinsman  of  the  great 
orator.  Canada,  this  writer  argued,  was  not  one  of  the 
original  objects  of  the  war,  and  we  had  no  original  right 
to  it.  The  acquisition  of  a  vast,  barren,  and  almost  un- 


1  Bancroft's  Hist,  of  the  United          *  Letter  to  Two  Great  Men  on 
States,  i.  525.  tlie  Prospect  of  Peace. 


•1  ENGLAND  IN   THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.       CH.  xi. 

inhabited  country,  lying  in  an  inhospitable  climate,  and 
with  no  commerce  except  that  of  furs  and  skins,  was 
economically  far  less  valuable  to  England  than  the 
acquisition  of  Guadaloupe,  which  was  one  of  the  most 
important  of  the  sugar  islands.  Before  the  war  France 
had  a  real  superiority  in  the  West  Indies,  and  the 
English  Caribbean  islands  were  far  more  endangered  by 
the  French  possession  of  Guadaloupe,  than  the  English 
American  colonies  by  the  French  possession  of  Canada. 
The  latter  danger  was,  indeed,  never  great,  and  by  a 
slight  modification  of  territory  and  the  erection  of  a  few 
forts  it  might  be  reduced  to  insignificance.  England 
in  America  was  both  a  far  greater  continental  and  a  far 
greater  naval  Power  than  France,  and  she  had  an  im- 
mense superiority  both  in  population  and  position. 
But  in  addition  to  these  considerations,  it  was  urged, 
an  island  colony  is  more  advantageous  than  a  continental 
one,  for  it  is  necessarily  more  dependent  upon  the 
mother  country.  In  the  New  England  provinces  there 
are  already  colleges  and  academies  where  the  American 
youth  can  receive  their  education.  America  produces, 
or  can  easily  produce,  almost  everything  she  wants. 
Her  population  and  her  wealth  are  rapidly  increasing ; 
and  as  the  colonies  recede  more  and  more  from  the  sea, 
the  necessity  for  their  connection  with  England  will 
steadily  diminish.  *  They  will  have  nothing  to  expect, 
they  must  live  wholly  by  their  own  labour,  and  in  pro- 
cess of  time  will  know  little,  inquire  little,  and  care 
little  about  the  mother  country.  If  the  people  of  our 
colonies  find  no  check  from  Canada  they  will  extend 
themselves  almost  without  bounds  into  the  inland  parts. 
.  .  .  What  the  consequence  will  be  to  have  a  nume- 
rous, hardy,  independent  people  possessed  of  a  strong 
country,  communicating  little  or  not  at  all  with  England, 
I  leave  to  your  own  reflections.  ...  By  eagerly  grasping 
at  extensive  territory  we  may  run  the  risk,  and  that 


CH.  xi.       SHOULD  CANADA  BE  RETAINED?          5 

perhaps  in  no  very  distant  period,  of  losing  what  we 
now  possess.  The  possession  of  Canada,  far  from  being 
necessary  to  our  safety,  may  in  its  consequences  be  even 
dangerous.  A  neighbour  that  keeps  us  in  some  awe  is 
not  always  the  worst  of  neighbours.  So  far  from 
sacrificing  Guadaloupe  to  Canada,  perhaps  if  we  might 
have  Canada  without  any  sacrifice,  we  ought  not  tc 
desire  it.  ...  There  is  a  balance  of  power  in  America 
as  well  as  in  Europe.' l 

These  views  are  said  to  have  been  countenanced  by 
Lord  Hardwicke,2  but  the  tide  of  opinion  ran  strongly 
in  the  opposite  direction.  Mauduit  as  well  as  Bath 
wrote  in  favour  of  the  retention  of  Canada,  and  their 
arguments  were  supported  by  Franklin,  who  in  a  re- 
markable pamphlet  sketched  the  great  undeveloped 
capabilities  of  the  colonies,  and  ridiculed  the  *  visionary 
fear '  that  they  could  ever  be  combined  against  England.3 
Pitt  was  strongly  on  the  same  side.  The  nation  had 
learned  to  look  with  pride  and  sympathy  upon  that 
greater  England  which  was  growing  up  beyond  the 

1  Remarks  on  the  Letter  Ad-  country  to  establish  it  for  them. 
dressed  to  Two  Great  Men,  pp.  Nothing  but  the  immediate  com- 
30,  31.  mand  of  the  Crown  has  been  able 

2  Hutchinson's     History     of  to  produce  even  the  imperfect 
Massachusetts   Bay  from  1749  union  but  lately  seen  there  of 
to    1774,    p.    100.     Hardwicke,  the  forces  of  some  colonies.     If 
however,  is  said  to  have  been  they  could  not  agree  to  unite  for 
governed  exclusively  by  commer-  their  defence  against  the  French 
cial  considerations.  and  Indians  .  .  .  can  it  reason- 

8  *  Their  jealousy  of  each  other  ably  be  supposed  there  is  any 

is  so  great,  that  however  neces-  danger  of  their  uniting  against 

sary  a  union  of  the  colonies  has  their  own  nation,  which  protects 

long  been  for  their  common  de-  and  encourages  them,  with  which 

fenoa  and  security  against  their  they  have  so  many  connections 

enemies,  and  how  sensible  soever  and  ties  of  blood,  interest,  and 

each  colony  has   been  of  that  affection,  and  which,  it  is  well 

necessity,  yet  they  have  never  known,  they  all  love  much  more 

been  able  to  effect  such  a  union  than  they  love  one  another?  *— 

among  themselves,  nor  even  to  Canada     Pamphlet,    Franklin's 

>gree  in  requesting  the  mother  Works,  iv.  41,  42. 


6      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

Atlantic,  and  there  was  a  desire  which  was  not  un- 
generous or  ignoble  to  remove  at  any  risk  the  one 
obstacle  to  its  future  happiness.  It  was  felt  that  the 
colonists  who  had  contributed  so  largely  to  the  conquest 
of  Cape  Breton  had  been  shamefully  sacrificed  at  the 
Peace  of  Aix-la-Ohapelle,  when  that  province  was  re- 
stored to  France ;  and  that  the  expulsion  of  the  French 
from  Canada  was  essential,  not  only  to  the  political  and 
commercial  prosperity  of  the  Northern  colonists,  but 
also  to  the  security  of  their  homes.  The  Indian  tribes 
clustered  thickly  around  the  disputed  frontier,  and  the 
French  being  numerically  very  inferior  to  the  English, 
had  taken  great  pains  to  conciliate  them,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  incite  them  against  the  English.  Six 
times  within  eighty-five  years  the  horrors  of  Indian 
war  had  devastated  the  northern  and  eastern  frontier.1 
The  Peace  of  Paris,  by  depriving  the  Indians  of  French 
support,  was  one  of  the  most  important  steps  to  their 
subjection. 

To  any  statesman  who  looked  upon  the  question 
without  passion  and  without  illusion,  it  must  have 
appeared  evident  that  if  the  English  colonies  resolved 
to  sever  themselves  from  the  British  Empire,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  prevent  them.  Their  population  is  said 
to  have  doubled  in  twenty-five  years.  They  were  sepa- 
rated from  the  mother  country  by  three  thousand  miles 
of  water.  Their  seaboard  extended  for  more  than  one 
thousand  miles.  Their  territory  was  almost  boundless 
in  its  extent  and  in  its  resources,  and  the  greater  part 
of  it  was  still  untraversed  and  unexplored.  To  conquer 
such  a  country  would  be  a  task  of  great  difficulty,  and 
of  ruinous  expense.  To  hold  it  in  opposition  to  the 
general  wish  of  the  people  would  be  impossible.  Eng- 
land by  her  command  of  the  sea  might  easily  destroy  ita 


Hildreth's  History  of  the  United  States,  ii.  496. 


CH.  xi.  MILITARY   CAPABILITIES   OF   AMERICA.  7 

commerce,  disturb  its  fisheries,  bombard  its  seaboard 
towns,  and  deprive  it  of  many  of  the  luxuries  of  life,  but 
she  could  strike  no  vital  blow.  The  colonists  were  chiefly 
small  and  independent  freeholders,  hardy  backwoods- 
men and  hunters,  universally  acquainted  with  the  use  of 
arms,  and  with  all  the  resources  and  energies  which  life 
in  a  new  country  seldom  fails  to  develop.  They  had 
representative  assemblies  to  levy  taxes  and  organise  re- 
sistance. They  had  militias  which  in  some  colonies  in- 
cluded all  adult  freemen  between  the  ages  of  sixteen  or 
eighteen  and  fifty  or  sixty ;  1  and  in  addition  to  the 
Indian  raids,  they  had  the  military  experience  of  two 
great  wars.  The  capture  of  Louisburg  in  1 749  had  been 
mainly  their  work,  and  although  at  the  beginning  of  the 
following  war  they  exhibited  but  little  alacrity,  Pitt,  by 
promising  that  the  expenses  should  be  reimbursed  by 
the  British  Parliament,  had  speedily  called  them  to  arms. 
In  the  latter  stages  of  the  war  more  than  2 0,000  colonial 
troops,  10,000  of  them  from  New  England  alone,  had 
been  continually  in  the  field,  and  more  than  400  priva- 
teers had  been  fitted  out  in  the  colonial  harbours.2  The 
colonial  troops  were,  it  is  true,  only  enlisted  fora  single 
campaign,  and  they  therefore  never  attained  the  steadi- 
ness and  discipline  of  English  veterans  ;  but  they  had 
co-operated  honourably  in  the  conquest  of  Canada,  and 


1  Burnaby's  Travels  in  North  ticularly,  there  is  an  express  law 

America.    Pinkerton'a   Voyages,  by  which  every  man  is  obliged 

xiii.    725,     728,    749.       Gerard  to  have  a  musket,   a  pound  of 

Hamilton,  in  a  letter  written  in  powder,  and  a  pound  of  bullets 

1767,  said:  '  There  are  in  the  dif-  always  by  him,  so  there  is  no- 

ferent  provinces  above  a  million  thing  wanting  but  knapsacks  (or 

of  people  of  which  we  may  sup-  old  stockings,  which  will  do  as 

pose  »<t  least  200,000  men  able  to  well)  to  equip  an  army  for  march, 

bear  arms  ;  and  not  only  able  to  ing.' — Chatham  Correspondence, 

bear  arms,  but  having  arms  in  iii.  203. 

their  possession  unrestrained  by  2  Kamsay's  Hist,  of  the  Ameri- 

any  iniquitous  game  Act.  In  the  can  Revolution,  i.  40.    Hildreth, 

Massachusetts  Government  par-  ii.  486.     Grahame,  iv.  94. 


8      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

even  in  the  expeditions  against  Havannah  and  Mar- 
tinique, and  they  contained  many  skilful  officers  quite 
capable  of  conducting  a  war. 

Under  such  circumstances,  with  the  most  moderate 
heroism,  and  even  without  foreign  assistance,  a  united 
rebellion  of  the  English  colonies  must  have  been  suc- 
cessful, and  their  connection  with  the  mother  country 
depended  mainly  upon  their  disposition  towards  her  and 
towards  each  other.  For  some  years  before  the  English 
Revolution,  and  for  several  years  after  the  accession  of 
William,  the  relations  of  the  colonies  to  England  had 
been  extremely  tense  ;  but  in  the  long  period  of  un- 
broken Whig  rule  which  followed,  most  of  the  elements 
of  discontent  had  subsided.  The  wise  neglect  of  Wai- 
pole  and  Newcastle  was  eminently  conducive  to  colonial 
interests.  The  substitution  in  several  colonies  of  royal 
for  proprietary  governments  was  very  popular.  It  was 
found  that  the  direct  rule  of  the  Sovereign  was  much 
more  equitable  and  liberal  than  that  of  private  companies 
or  individuals.  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  Delaware 
alone  retained  the  proprietary  form,  and  in  the  first  two 
at  least,  a  large  party  desired  that  the  proprietors  should 
be  compensated,  and  that  the  colonies  should  be  placed 
directly  under  the  Crown.1  There  were  slight  differ- 
ences in  the  colonial  forms  of  government,  but  every- 
where the  colonists  paid  their  governors  and  their  other 
officials.  The  lower  chamber  in  each  province  was 
elected  freely  by  the  people,  and  in  nearly  every  respect 
they  governed  themselves  under  the  shadow  of  the  British 
dominion  with  a  liberty  which  was  hardly  equalled  in 
any  other  portion  of  the  civilised  globe.  Political  power 
was  incomparably  more  diffused,  and  the  representative 

1  See  a  very  remarkable  pam-  lition  of  the  proprietary  govern- 

phlet  of  Franklin,   called  Cool  ment  in  Pennsylvania.    Frank- 

Thoughts  on  the  present  Situa-  lin's  Works,  iv.  78-93. 
tion  (1764),  advocating  the  abo- 


CH.  xi.  ATTACHMENT  TO  ENGLAND.  9 

system  was  incomparably  less  corrupt  than  at  home,  and 
real  constitutional  liberty  was  nourishing  in  the  English 
colonies  when  nearly  all  European  countries  and  all  other 
colonies  were  despotically  governed.  Material  prosperity 
was  at  the  same  time  advancing  with  giant  strides,  and 
religious  liberty  was  steadily  maintained.  Whatever 
might  be  her  policy  nearer  home,  in  the  colonies  the  Eng- 
lish Government  in  the  eighteenth  century  uniformly 
opposed  the  efforts  of  any  one  sect  to  oppress  the  others.1 
The  circumstances  and  traditions  of  the  colonists  had 
made  them  extremely  impatient  of  every  kind  of  autho- 
rity, but  there  is  no  reason  for  doubting  that  they  were 
animated  by  a  real  attachment  to  England.  Their  com- 
mercial intercourse,  under  the  restrictions  of  the  Navi- 
gation Law,  was  mainly  with  her.  Their  institutions, 
their  culture,  their  religion,  their  ideas  were  derived 
from  English  sources.  They  had  a  direct  interest  in  the 
English  war  against  France  and  Spain.  They  were  proud 
of  their  English  lineage,  of  English  greatness,  and  of 
English  liberty,  and,  in  the  words  of  Franklin,  they  had 
1  not  only  a  respect  but  an  affection  for  Great  Britain ; 
.  .  .  to  be  an  Old  England  man  was  of  itself  a  character 
of  some  respect,  and  gave  a  kind  of  rank  among  them.' 2 
Hutchinson,  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  who  was  one 
of  the  strongest  supporters  of  the  royal  authority,  ac- 
knowledges that  when  George  III.  mounted  the  throne, 
if  speculative  men  sometimes  figured  in  their  minds  an 

1  In  Carolina  a  law  had  been  palians,  and  in  others  the  Dis- 

passed  depriving  the  Dissenters  senters,  have  been  predominant, 

of  their  political  privileges,  but  they  have  made  partial  laws  in 

it  was  repealed  by  the  King  in  favour  of  their  respective  sects, 

Council.    Franklin's  Works,  iv.  and  laid  some  difficulties  on  the 

84.  Franklin  adds :  •  Nor  is  there  others,  but  those  laws  have  been 

existing  in  any  of  the  American  generally,  on  complaint,  repealed 

colonies  any    test    imposed    by  at  home.' — P.  88. 
Great  Britain  to  exclude  Dissen-          2  See  his  evidence  before  Par- 

ters  from  office.     In  some  colo-  liament    in    1766.       Frankliu'a 

nies,  indeed,  where  the  Episco-  Works,  iv.  169. 


10     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   cu.  xi 

American  Empire,  it  was  only  '  in  such  distant  ages  that 
nobody  then  living  could  expect  to  see  it ; '  and  he  adds 
that  the  rapid  growth  of  colonial  power  had  as  yet  pro- 
duced no  '  plan  or  even  desire  of  independency/  and 
that  *  the  greatest  hope  from  the  reduction  of  Canada, 
as  far  as  could  be  judged  from  the  public  prayers  of  the 
clergy  as  well  as  from  the  conversation  of  people  in 
general,  was  "  to  sit  quiet  under  their  own  vines  and  fig- 
trees,  and  to  have  none  to  make  them  afraid." ' l  The 
great  career  of  Pitt,  which  had  intensified  patriotic  feel- 
ings throughout  the  Empire,  was  nowhere  more  appre- 
ciated than  in  America,  and  the  Peace  of  Paris,  however 
distasteful  to  Englishmen,  might  at  least  have  been  ex- 
pected to  strengthen  the  loyalty  of  the  colonies.  It  had 
been  made  by  men  who  were  wholly  beyond  the  range 
of  their  influence,  yet  they  had  gained  incomparably 
more  by  it  than  any  other  portion  of  the  Empire. 

The  patriotism  of  the  colonies  indeed  attracted  them 
far  more  to  England  than  to  each  other.  Small  groups 
of  colonies  were  no  doubt  drawn  together  by  a  natural 
affinity,  but  there  was  no  common  colonial  government, 
and  they  were  in  general  at  least  as  jealous  of  each 
other  as  of  England.  •  One  of  the  chief  excuses  for  im- 
posing by  parliamentary  authority  imperial  taxation  on 
the  colonies  was  the  extreme  difficulty  of  inducing  them 
to  co-operate  cordially  for  military  purposes.2  Soon 
after  the  Revolution,  William  had  proposed  a  plan  for 


1  Hutchinson's  Hist,  of  Mas-  things  go  on  very  slowly  and  ir- 
sachusetts  Bay,  pp.  84,  85.  regularly  here ;  for  not  only  the 

2  The  Swedish  traveller  Kalm,  sense  of  one  province  is  some- 
who  visited  North  America    in  times  directly  opposite  to  that  of 
1749  and  1750,  was  much  struck  another,  but  frequently  the  views 
with  this  dislike  to  co-operation.  of  the  Governor  and  those  of  the 
He  says  :  '  Each  English  colony  Assembly  of  the  same  province 
in  North  America  is  independent  are   quite  different.  ...  It  haa 
of  the  other.  .  .  .  From  hence  it  commonly  happened  that  while 
happens    that   in  time  of    war  some  provinces  have  been  suffer 


CH.  xi.  DISUNION   OF  THE   COLONIES.  11 

general  defence  against  the  French  forces  In  Canada  by 
which  each  colony  was  to  contribute  a  contingent  pro- 
portionate to  its  numbers,  but  all  the  colonial  assem- 
blies rejected  it,  and  the  States  which  were  most  remote 
from  the  danger  absolutely  refused  to  participate  in  the 
expense.1  In  1754,  when  another  great  war  was  im- 
pending, a  Congress  of  Commissioners  from  the  different 
colonies  assembled  at  Albany,  at  the  summons  of  the 
Lords  of  Trade,  for  the  purpose  of  concerting  together 
and  with  the  friendly  Indians  upon  measures  of  defence. 
Benjamin  Franklin  was  one  of  the  Commissioners  for 
Pennsylvania,  and  he  brought  forward  a  plan  for  uniting 
the  colonies  for  defence  and  for  some  other  purposes  of 
general  utility  into  a  single  Federal  State,  administered 
by  a  President-General  appointed  by  the  Crown,  and  by 
a  general  council  elected  by  the  colonial  assemblies  ; 
but  the  plan  was  equally  repudiated  by  the  colonial 
legislatures  as  likely  to  abridge  their  authority,  and  by 
the  Board  of  Trade  as  likely  to  foster  colonial  indepen- 
dence.2 In  the  war  that  ensued  it  was  therefore  left  to 
the  colonial  legislatures  to  act  independently  in  raising 
troops  and  money,  and  while  the  Northern  colonies  which 
lay  nearest  Canada  more  than  fulfilled  their  part,  some 
of  the  Southern  ones  refused  to  take  any  considerable 
share  of  the  burden.  The  management  of  Indian  affairs 
gradually  passed  with  general  approval  from  the  different 
colonial  legislatures  to  the  Crown,  as  it  was  found  im- 


ing  from  their  enemies,  the  neigh-  There  are  instances  of  provinces 

bouring  ones  were  quiet  and  in-  who  were  not  only  neuter  in  these 

active  and  as  if  it  did  not  in  the  circumstances,    but    who     even 

least  concern  them.    They  have  carried  on  a  great  trade  with  the 

frequently  taken  up  two  or  three  Power  which  at  that  very  time 

years    in     considering   whether  was  attacking  and  laying  waste 

they  should  give   assistance  to  some  other  provinces.' — Pinker- 

an  oppressed  sister  colony,  and  ton's  Voyages,  xiii.  460,  461. 

sometimes  they  have  expressly  '  Grahame,  iii.  13. 

declared  themselves   against  it.  2  Franklin's  Works,  i.  177. 


12     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CK.  xi. 

possible  to  induce  the  former  to  act  together  on  any 
settled  plan.1 

The  history  of  the  colonies  during  the  twenty  or 
thirty  years  preceding  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
is  full  of  intestine  or  intercolonial  disputes.  There  were 
angry  discussions  about  boundaries  between  Massachu- 
setts on  the  one  hand,  and  Rhode  Island,  New  Hamp- 
shire, and  Connecticut  on  the  other.  Albany  was  long 
accused  of  trafficking  largely  with  the  Indians  for  the 
spoils  they  had  obtained  in  their  raids  upon  New  Eng- 
land. New  York  quarrelled  fiercely  with  Virginia  about 
the  responsibility  for  the  failure  of  a  military  expedi- 
tion, and  with  New  Hampshire  about  the  government 
of  the  territory  which  was  subsequently  known  as  Ver- 
mont. In  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland  the  Assemblies 
were  in  continual  hostility  with  their  proprietaries,  and 
the  mother  country  was  compelled  to  decide  a  vio- 
lent dispute  about  salaries  between  the  Virginian  laity 
and  clergy.  Great  bodies  of  Dutch,  Germans,  French, 
Swedes,  Scotch,  and  Irish,  scattered  among  the  descen- 
dants of  the  English,  contributed  to  the  heterogeneous 
character  of  the  colonies,  and  they  comprised  so  many 
varieties  of  government,  religious  belief,  commercial  in- 
terest, and  social  type,  that  their  union  appeared  to 
many  incredible  on  the  very  eve  of  the  E-evolution.2  The 

1  Grahame,  iv.  145-147.  inexhaustible  source  of  animosity 

2  The  following  is  the  judg-  in  their  jealousy  for  the  trade  of 
ment  of  that  usually  very  acute  the  Jerseys.    Massachusetts  Bay 
observer,  Burnaby,  who  travelled  and  Bhode  Island  are  not  IPSS 
through  the  colonies  in  1759  and  interested  in  that  of  Connecticut. 
1760.     '  Fire  and  water  are  not  The  West  Indies  are  a  common 
more    heterogeneous    than    the  subject  of  emulation  to  them  all. 
different  colonies  in  North  Ame-  Even  the  limits  and  boundaries 
rica.     Nothing  can  exceed  the  of  each  colony  are   a  constant 
jealousy  and    emulation  which  source  of  litigation.     In   short, 
they  possess  in  regard  to  each  such  is  the  difference  of  charac- 
other.   The  inhabitants  of  Penn-  ter,  of  manners,  of  religion,  of 
Rylvania  and  New  York  have  an  interest  of  the  different  colonies, 


CH.  xi.  NEW  ENGLAND.  13 

movement  which  at  last  arrayed  them  in  a  united  front 
against  England  was  not  a  blind  instinctive  patriotism 
or  community  of  sentiment,  like  that  which  animates  old 
countries.  It  was  the  deliberate  calculation  of  intelli- 
gent men,  who  perceived  that  by  such  union  alone  could 
they  attain  the  objects  of  their  desire. 

New  England,  which  was  the  centre  of  the  resist- 
ance, was  then  divided  into  the  four  States  of  Massa- 
chusetts Bay,  Connecticut,  New  Hampshire,  and  Rhode 
Island,  and  it  was,  in  proportion  to  its  size,  by  far  the 
most  populous  portion  of  British  America.  It  com- 
prised about  a  third  part  of  its  whole  population,1  and 
Massachusetts  alone  had,  during  a  great  part  of  the  last 
war,  maintained  7,000  men  under  arms.  The  descend- 
ants of  the  old  Puritans,  the  New  Englanders  were  still 
chiefly  Congregationalists  or  Presbyterians,  and  there 
might  be  found  among  them  an  austerity  of  manners 
and  of  belief  which  was  hardly  exceeded  in  Scotland. 
It  was,  however,  gradually  declining  under  many  influ- 
ences. Time,  increasing  wealth,  the  intellectual  atmo- 
sphere of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  disorders  and 
changes  produced  by  a  state  of  war,  contact  with  large 
bodies  of  European  soldiers,  and  also  the  demoralising 


that  I  think,  if  I  am  not  wholly  mother  country.  Whenever  such 

ignorant  of  the  human  mind,  a  day  shall  come,  it  will  be  the  be- 

were    they    left    to  themselves,  ginning  of  a  terrible  scene.  Were 

there  would  soon  be  a  civil  war  these  colonies  left  to  themselves 

from  one  end  of  the  continent  to  to-morrow,  America  would  be  a 

the   other ;    while  the    Indians  mere  shambles  of  blood  and  con- 

and  negroes  would  with  better  fusion  before  little  petty  states 

reason    impatiently    watch   the  could  be  settled.' — Answer  to  the 

opportunity    of     exterminating  Halifax  Libel,  p.  16. 
them    altogether.'  —  Pinkerton,  '  According  to   Grahame  (iv. 

xiii.  752.     Otis,  one  of  the  earli-  125),  in  1763  it  contained  upwards 

est  and  most  considerable  of  the  of  500,000  persons.    The  North 

American  patriots,  wrote  in  1765:  American   Gazetteer    (2nd    edit 

«  God  forbid  these  colonies  should  1778)    estimates  its    population 

ever  prove   undutiful    to    their  at  upwards  of  600,000. 


14  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     CH.  xi. 

influence  of  a  great  smuggling  trade  with  the  French 
West  Indies,  had  all  in  their  different  ways  impaired 
the  old  types  of  character.  The  Governments  of  three 
of  the  colonies  were  exceedingly  democratic.  In  Massa- 
chusetts the  Council  or  Upper  Chamber,  instead  of 
being,  as  in  most  provinces,  appointed  by  the  Sove- 
reign, was  elected  annually  by  the  Lower  Chamber; 
every  town  officer  was  annually  chosen ;  all  town  affairs 
were  decided  in  public  meetings  ;  the  clergy  were 
selected  by  their  congregations,  and,  with  the  exception 
of  a  few  Custom-house  officers,  the  Crown  officers  were 
paid  by  the  State.  The  Governor  was  appointed  by  the 
Crown,  and  he  possessed  a  right  of  veto  upon  laws,  and 
also  upon  the  appointment  of  Councillors  ;  but  as  his 
own  salary  and  that  of  the  whole  Executive  depended 
on  the  popular  vote,  and  as  the  Council  emanated  directly 
from  the  representative  body,  his  actual  power  was  ex- 
tremely small.  The  civil  list  allowed  by  the  Assembly 
was  precarious  and  was  cut  down  to  the  narrowest  limits. 
The  Governor  usually  received  1,OOOZ.  English  currency 
a  year,  but  obtained  some  additional  occasional  grants. 
The  Lieutenant-Governor  received  no  salary  as  such, 
except  during  the  absence  of  the  Governor,  and  the 
office  was  therefore  usually  combined  with  some  other. 
The  judges  had  each  only  about  120Z.  sterling  a  year, 
with  the  addition  of  some  fees,  which  were  said  not  to 
have  been  sufficient  to  cover  their  travelling  expenses.1 
The  Attorney-General  received  no  salary  from  the  As- 
sembly, as  the  Governor  refused  to  recognise  its  claim 
to  have  a  voice  in  his  appointment.  Rhode  Island  and 
Connecticut  were  even  more  democratic  than  Massa- 
chusetts. By  the  charters  conceded  to  these  colonies, 

1  Beports    of    the    Board   of  See,  too,  a  letter  of  Hutchinson 

Trade    on    the    Establishments  in  the  American  Remembrancer 

in  America   (1766).      American  1776,  part  i.  p.  159. 
Papers,     MSS.,    Record    Office. 


CH.  xi.  GROWING   INFLUENCE   OF   LAWYERS.  15 

the  freemen  elected  all  their  officers  from  the  highest  to 
the  lowest,  and  they  were  not  obliged  to  communicate 
the  acts  of  their  local  legislatures  to  the  King.  Such  a 
system  had  naturally  led  to  grave  abuses,  and  in  Rhode 
Island  especially  there  were  loud  complaints  of  the 
ecandalous  partiality  of  the  judges  and  of  the  low  pre- 
vailing tone  of  honesty  and  statesmanship.1 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  recent  changes  in  New 
England  manners  was  the  extraordinary  increase  of  liti- 
gation and  the  rapid  growth  in  numbers  and  importance 
of  the  legal  class.  For  a  century  and  a  half  of  colonial 
days  there  were  but  two  lay  presidents  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege ;  nearly  half  the  students  were  intended  for  some 
church  ministry,  and  the  profession  of  a  lawyer  was 
looked  upon  as  in  some  degree  dishonest  and  disreput- 
able. It  was  rapidly  rising,  however,  in  New  England 
as  elsewhere,  and  it  contributed  more  than  any  other 
profession  to  the  Revolution.2  Jefferson,  Adams,  Otis, 
Dickenson,  and  many  other  minor  agents  in  the  struggle 

1  See   the  very   unfavourable  ties  sent  to  Congress  were  law- 
picture     given     by     Burnaby  ;  yers.  ...  I  have  been  told  by 
Pinkerton,  xiii.742,743.  Winter-  an  eminent  bookseller  that  in 
botham's  Present   Situation  of  no  branch  of  his  business,  after 
the  United  States  (1795),  ii.  230.  tracts  of  popular  devotion,  were 
Burke' s    European    Settlements  so  many  books  as  those  on  the 
in  America,  ii.  300.  law  exported  to  the  plantations.' 

2  See  a  curious  passage  in  the  — Speech  on   Conciliation  with 
Life   of  Adams  prefixed  to  his  America,     See,  too,  Burke's  Eu- 
Familiar  Letters   to  his    Wife,  ropean  Settlements  in  America, 
pp.    x,    xiv.      Tucker    says    of  ii.  304.    The  passion  for  the  law 
America :   '  In  no  country,  per-  steadily  increased,  and  in  1787 
haps,   in  the  world    are    there  Noah    Webster    wrote :    '  Never 
so    many  lawsuits.' — Letter    to  was  such  a  rage  for  the  study 
Burke,  p.  26.     So,  too,  Burke :  of  law.    From  one  end  of   the 
'  In  no  country,  perhaps,  in  the  continent  to  the  other  the   stu- 
world   is   the  law  so  general  a  dents  of  this  science  are  multi- 
study.     The  profession  itself  is  plying  without  number.    An  in- 
numerous  and  powerful,  and  in  fallible  proof  that  the  business 
most  provinces  it  takes  the  lead.  is  lucrative.' — Webster's  Essays, 
The  greater  number  of  the  depu-  p.  116. 


16     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

were  lawyers.  Another  influence  which  did  much  to  lower 
the  New  England  character  was  the  abundance  of  depre- 
ciated paper  money.  In  1750  the  British  Parliament 
granted  a  sum  of  money  to  reimburse  Massachusetts 
for  what  it  had  expended  more  than  its  proportion 
towards  the  general  expense  of  the  war,  and  the  Legis- 
lature of  the  province  determined  to  redeem  their  paper, 
but  to  do  so  at  a  depreciated  value,  and  only  an  ounce 
of  silver  was  given  for  50s.  of  paper,  though  the  bills 
themselves  promised  an  ounce  for  6s.  Sd.  In  1751  the 
mother  country  was  obliged  to  interpose  to  prevent  the 
New  Englanders  from  cheating  their  English  creditors 
by  making  paper  legal  tender.1 

Still  with  every  drawback  the  bulk  of  the  New 
Englanders  were  a  people  of  strong  fibre  and  high 
morals.  Strictly  Sabbatarian,  rigidly  orthodox,  averse 
to  extravagance,  to  gambling,  and  to  effeminate  amuse- 
ments, capable  of  great  efforts  of  self-sacrifice,  hard, 
stubborn,  and  indomitably  intractable,  they  had  most 
of  the  qualities  of  a  ruling  race.  The  revival  of 
Jonathan  Edwards,  the  later  preaching  of  Whitefield, 
and  the  numerous  days  of  fasting  or  thanksgiving,  had 
done  something  to  sustain  their  fanaticism.  A  severe 
climate  and  long  struggles  with  the  French  and  the 
Indians  had  indurated  their  characters,  and  the  common 
schools  which  had  been  established  in  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century  in  every  village  had  made  a  certain 
level  of  education  universal.  Their  essentially  repub- 
lican religion,  the  traditions  of  their  republican  origin, 
and  the  republican  tone  of  their  manners,  had  all  con- 
spired to  maintain  among  them  a  spirit  of  fierce  and 
jealous  independence.  They  had  few  manufactures. 

1  24  Geo.  II.  c.  53.    Another  subject  Tucker's  Letter  to  Burke, 

law  to  facilitate  recovery  of  debts  pp.   29-31.      Bolles'   Financial 

from  America  was  made  in  1732  History  of   the    United   States^ 

(5  Geo.  II.  c.  7).     See   on  this  pp.  29,'  30. 


ra.  xi.  NEW  ENGLAND.  17 

Slavery,  being  unsuited  to  their  soil  and  climate,  had 
taken  but  little  root,  and  there  was  said  to  be  no  other 
portion  of  the  globe  in  which  there  was  so  little  either 
of  wealth  or  of  poverty.1  The  bulk  of  the  population 
were  small  freeholders  cultivating  their  own  land.  By 
a  somewhat  singular  anomaly,  the  democratic  colony  of 
Rhode  Island,  during  nearly  the  whole  of  its  colonial 
history,  adopted  the  English  law  of  real  property  with 
its  system  of  entail  and  primogeniture  ;  but  in  the  other 
New  England  colonies  the  law  favoured  equal  division, 
reserving,  however,  in  the  case  of  intestacy,  a  double 
portion  for  the  elder  son.2  Extreme  poverty  was  un- 
known ;  yet  Burke,  who  was  admirably  acquainted  with 
American  life,  questioned  whether  there  were  two  per- 
sons either  in  Massachusetts  or  Connecticut  who  could 
afford  to  spend  1,OOOL  a  year  at  a  distance  from  their 
estates.3  Boston,  at  the  time  of  the  Peace  of  Paris, 
contained  18,000  or  20,000  inhabitants.4  It  was  the 
great  intellectual  centre  of  the  colonies,  and  five  print- 
ing presses  \tare  in  constant  employment  within  its 
walls.  It  contained  the  chief  distilleries  in  America  ; 
it  was  noted  for  its  commerce,  its  shipbuilding,  and 
its  cod-fishery ;  and  in  1763  no  less  than  eighty  New 
England  vessels  were  employed  in  the  whale  fishery  at 
the  mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence.5  Boston,  however,  un- 
like most  American  towns,  appears  for  a  long  time  to 
have  been  almost  stationary.1  The  rise  of  New  York, 


1  Winterbotham's  View  of  the  Works,  ii.  213,  estimates  it  at 
United  States,  ii.  3,  4.  16,000.      Winterbotham,     some 

2  Story's   Constitution  of  the  years  after  the  ^Revolution,  reck- 
United  States,  i.  90,  166.  ons  it  at  18,038.     In  the  North 

3  Observations  on  the  State  of  American  Gazetteer,  it  is  placed 
the  Nation.    ^  as  high  as  30,000,  but  this  is 

4  Burnaby  in  1759  reckons  the  certainly  an  exaggeration, 
population  of  Boston    at    from  5.  Grahame's  Hist.  iv.  129, 130. 
18,000    to    20,000.      Pinkerton,  Burke's  European   Settlements, 
atiii.  744.    Adams  in  his  Diary,  ii.  183. 


18     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   en.  xi. 

Philadelphia,  and  other  towns  had  diminished  its  pros- 
perity, and  the  New  England  States  were  burdened  by 
considerable  natural  disadvantages,  and  by  the  great 
weight  of  debt  bequeathed  from  the  war. 

Among  the  Middle  States  the  two  provinces  of  New 
York  and  New  Jersey  still  contained  many  families  de- 
scended from  the  old  Dutch  settlers;  but  these  were 
being  rapidly  lost  in  a  very  miscellaneous  population. 
Twenty-one  years  before  New  York,  or,  as  it  was  then 
called,  New  Amsterdam,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Eng- 
lish, it  was  computed  that  no  less  than  eighteen  different 
languages  were  spoken  in  or  near  the  town,1  and  it  con- 
tinued under  English  rule  to  be  one  of  the  chief  centres 
of  foreign  immigration.  It  was  noticed  during  the  War 
of  Independence,  that  the  political  indifference  of  these 
colonies  formed  a  curious  contrast  to  the  vehemence  of 
New  England,2  and  New  York  fluctuated  more  violently 
in  its  political  attitude  than  any  other  colony  in 
America.  The  town  at  the  Peace  of  Paris  was  little 
more  than  half  the  size  of  Boston,  but  it  was  rapidly 
advancing  in  commercial  prosperity,  and  large  fortunes 
were  being  accumulated.  In  the  country  districts 
much  of  the  simplicity  and  frugality  of  the  old  Dutch 
settlers  survived ;  but  the  tone  of  manners  in  the  town 
was  less  severe  and  more  luxurious  than  in  New  Eng- 
land. There  were  but  few  signs  of  the  theological 
intolerance  so  conspicuous  in  some  of  the  older  States, 
and  very  many  religions,  representing  very  many 
nationalities,  subsisted  side  by  side  in  apparent  har- 
mony. There  was  little  intellectual  life ;  education  was 
very  backward,  and  the  pursuit  of  wealth  appears  to 
have  been  the  absorbing  passion. 

The  letters  written  by  the  Governor  and  Lieutenant- 

1  Tyler's  Hist,  of   American      Travels    in    North  America  in 
Literature,  ii.  206.  1780-1782,  ii.  180. 

2  Chastellux     (Eng.     trans.), 


en.  ix. 


NEW   YORK.  19 


Governor  to  the  home  authorities  in  1765  and  the  two 
following  years  give  a  curious,  though  perhaps  somewhat 
overcharged  picture,  of  the  less  favourable  aspects  of  New 
York  life.  The  most  opulent  men  in  the  State  had  risen 
within  a  single  generation  from  the  lowest  class.  Few 
persons  except  lawyers  had  any  tincture  of  literature, 
and  lawyers  under  these  circumstances  had  attained  a 
greater  power  in  this  province  than  in  any  other  part  of 
the  King's  dominions.  They  had  formed  an  association 
for  the  purpose  of  directing  political  affairs.  In  an 
Assembly  where  the  majority  of  the  members  were  igno- 
rant and  simple-minded  farmers,  they  had  acquired  a 
controlling  power  ;  they  knew  the  secrets  of  every  family. 
They  were  the  chief  writers  in  a  singularly  violent 
press.  They  organised  and  directed  every  opposition  to 
the  Governor,  and  they  had  attained  an  influence  not 
less  than  that  of  the  priesthood  in  a  bigoted  Catholic 
country.  There  was  a  long  and  bitter  quarrel  about 
the  position  of  the  judges,  one  party  wishing  that  they 
should  hold  their  office  during  good  behaviour,  and 
should  thus  be  beyond  the  control  of  the  Executive  or 
Home  Government  ;  the  other  party  wishing  that  they 
should  receive  fixed  and  adequate  salaries,  instead  of 
being  dependent  on  the  annual  vote  of  the  Assembly. 
The  utmost  annual  sum  the  Assembly  would  vote  for 
its  Chief  Justice  was  300Z.  of  New  York  currency,  which 
was  much  less  valuable  than  the  currency  of  England. 
Legal  decisions  are  said  to  have  been  given  with  great 
and  manifest  partiality.  '  In  the  present  state  of  our 
courts  of  justice/  wrote  the  Lieutenant-Govern  or,  *  all 
private  property  for  some  years  past,  as  well  as  the 
rights  and  authority  of  the  King,  are  more  precarious 
than  can  be  easily  imagined.'  On  one  occasion  the 
Chief  Justice  gave  a  judgment  against  a  member  of  the 
Assembly ;  by  the  influence  of  that  member  his  salary 
was  reduced  by  50Z.  In  cases  affecting  the  Revenue 


20     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

Acts  or  the  property  rights  of  the  Crown,  the  law  was 
almost  impotent,  and  the  Governor  vainly  tried  to  ob- 
tain the  right  of  appeal  to  an  English  court.  Cases 
under  5Z.  in  value  were  decided  by  the  local  magis- 
trates ;  and  as  it  was  the  custom  for  each  member  of  the 
Assembly  to  have  the  nomination  to  all  civil  and  military 
offices  in  his  own  county,  the  Commission  of  the  Peace 
was  the  usual  reward  of  electioneering  services.  No- 
thing was  more  common  than  to  find  petty  cases  decided 
in  public-houses,  by  magistrates  who  were  selected  from 
the  meanest  and  least  respectable  tradesmen,  and  who 
were  sometimes  so  ignorant  that  they  were  obliged  to 
put  a  mark  instead  of  a  signature  to  their  warrants.1 

By  far  the  most  important  of  the  Middle  States  was 
the  great  industrial  colony  of  Pennsylvania.  A  fertile 
soil,  a  great  abundance  of  mineral  wealth,  a  situation 
singularly  favourable  to  commercial  intercourse,  and  a 
population  admirably  energetic  and  industrious,  had 
contributed  to  develop  it,  and  it  far  surpassed  all  the 
other  colonies  in  the  perfection  of  its  agriculture,  and 
in  the  variety,  magnitude,  and  prosperity  of  its  manu- 
factures. Its  population  at  the  time  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  appears  to  have  been  about  350,000. 

1  Documents  relating  to  the  real  gentleman,  one  well-bred 
Colonial  History  of  New  York  man,  since  I  came  to  town.  At 
procured  in  Holland,  England,  their  entertainments  there  is  no 
and  France,  vii.  500,  705,  760,  conversation  that  is  agreeable ; 
774,  796,  797,  906,  979.  New  there  is  no  modesty ;  no  atten- 
York  is  described  by  most  of  the  tion  to  one  another.  They  talk 
writers  on  America  I  have  al-  very  loud,  very  fast,  and  all  to- 
ready  quoted.  J.  Adams  gives  a  gether.  If  they  ask  you  a  ques- 
very  unfavourable  picture  of  the  tion,  before  you  can  utter  three 
manners  of  its  inhabitants.  He  words  of  your  answer  they  will 
writes:  'With  all  the  opulence  break  out  upon  you  again  and 
and  splendour  of  this  city  [New  talk  away.' — Adams' Diary,  1774. 
York]  there  is  very  little  good  Works,  ii.  353.  On  the  condition 
breeding  to  be  found.  We  have  of  education  in  New  York,  see 
been  treated  with  an  assiduous  Tyler's  Hist,  of  American  Lite- 
respect,  but  I  have  not  seen  one  rature,  ii.  206,  207. 


CH.  xi.  PENNSYLVANIA.  21 

The  Quakers,  who  were  its  first  colonists,  now  formed 
about  a  fifth  part  of  the  population,  and  still  exercised 
the  greatest  power  in  the  Assembly.  Pennsylvania, 
however,  rivalled  or  surpassed  New  York  in  its  attrac- 
tion to  foreign  immigrants,  and  few  countries  have 
contained  so  great  a  mixture  of  nationalities.  The 
Germans  were  so  numerous  that  they  for  some  time 
returned  15  out  of  the  69  members  of  the  Assembly.1 
Nearly  12,000  had  landed  in  the  single  summer  of 
1749,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  century  a  German 
weekly  paper  was  published  at  Philadelphia.2  There 
was  also  a  large  colony  of  Irish  Presbyterians,  who 
lived  chiefly  along  the  western  frontier,  and  who  had 
established  a  prosperous  linen  manufacture ;  and 
Swedes,  Scotch,  Welsh,  and  a  few  Dutch  might  be 
found  among  the  inhabitants.  The  law  of  real  property 
was  nearly  the  same  as  in  Massachusetts.  There  was 
perfect  liberty,  and  the  prevailing  spirit  was  gentle, 
humane,  pacific,  and  keenly  money-making.  The 
Quakers,  though  their  distinctive  character  was  very 
clearly  imprinted  on  the  colony,  had  found  that  some 
departure  from  their  original  principles  was  indispens- 
able. A  section  of  them,  in  flagrant  opposition  to  the 
original  tenet  of  their  sect,  contended  that  war  was  not 
criminal  when  it  was  strictly  defensive.  A  long  line  of 
cannon  defended  the  old  Quaker  capital  against  the 
French  and  Spanish  privateers  ;  and  the  Pennsylvanian 
Assembly,  in  which  the  Quakers  predominated,  re- 
peatedly voted  military  aids  to  the  Crown  during  the 
French  wars,  disguising  their  act  by  voting  the  money 
only  '  for  the  King's  use,'  and  on  one  occasion  '  for  the 
purchase  of  bread,  flour,  wheat,  or  other  grain,'  the 
letter  being  understood  to  be  gunpowder.3 

1  Winterbotham,  ii.  439.  396. 

*  Kalm's    Travels    in   North          3  Franklin's    Life,    pp.   148- 
America.     Pinkerton,   xiii.  395,       155.  Kalm's  Travels.  Pinkerton, 


22      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  si. 

Philadelphia  was  probably  at  this  time  the  most 
beautiful  and  attractive  city  in  the  American  colonies  ; 
famous  for  its  ship-building,  for  the  great  variety  of  its 
commerce,  and  for  its  very  numerous  institutions  of 
benevolence  and  instruction.  Burnaby,  who  visited  it 
in  1759,  was  filled  'with  wonder  and.  admiration'  at 
the  noble  city  which  had  grown  up  where,  eighty  years 
before,  the  deer  and  the  buffalo  had  ranged.  He  dilates 
upon  the  admirable  lighting  and  paving  of  the  streets, 
upon  its  stately  town  hall,  upon  its  two  public  libraries, 
upon  its  numerous  churches,  almshouses,  and  schools ; 
upon  its  market,  which  was  l  almost  equal  to  that  of 
Leadenhall ; '  upon  the  crowd  of  ships  that  thronged  its 
harbour.  He  estimated  its  population  at  18,000  or 
20,000,  and  he  tells  us  that  about  twenty-five  ships 
were  annually  built  in  its  docks,  and  that  many  of  its 
houses  were  let  for  what  was  then  the  very  large  sum  of 
1001.  a  year.  It  contained  an  opulent  and  brilliant,  if 
somewhat  exclusive  society,  with  all  the  luxury  of  a 
European  city.  The  gay  profusion  of  flowers  that  were 
scattered  through  the  houses ;  the  rich  orchards  extend- 
ing to  the  very  verge  of  the  town,  and  encircling  every 
important  dwelling;  the  aspect  of  well-being  which  was 
displayed  in  every  class ;  the  use  of  tea,  which  as  early 
as  1750  was  universal  in  every  farmer's  house;1  the 
multiplication  of  country  seats ;  the  taste  for  lighter  and 
more  cheerful  manners,  which  had  sprung  from  contact 
with  the  English  officers  during  the  war  ;  the  periodical 
assemblies  of  gentlemen  and  ladies  of  the  best  society 
to  pass  the  summer  days  in  fishing  upon  the  Schuylkill, 
diversified  with  music  and  with  dancing — all  bring 

xiii.  391.    As  early  as  1741,  the  Travels,    and   Christian   Expe- 

Quaker,  Thomas  Chalkley,  had  riences  (ed.  1850),  pp.  362,  363. 

lamented  the    falling    away  of  l  Kalm's  Travels.    Pinkerton, 

Pennsylvanian  Quakers  in  this  xiii.  494. 
respect.    See  his  curious  Life, 


CH.  xi.  PHILADELPHIA.  23 

before  us  the  picture  of  a  State  whicn  was  far  removed 
from  the  simplicity,  the  poverty,  and  the  austerity  of  its 
Quaker  founders.1 

To  a  European,  however,  or  at  least  to  a  French 
taste,  the  tone  of  manners  appeared  formal  and  cum- 
brous. A  brilliant  Frenchman  who  visited  Philadel- 
phia during  the  War  of  Independence,  complained  with 
some  humour  that  dancing,  which  in  other  countries 
was  regarded  as  an  emblem  of  gaiety  and  love,  was 
treated  in  America  as  an  emblem  of  legislation  and 
marriage ;  that  every  detail  of  a  ball  was  regulated 
beforehand  with  the  most  minute  precision,  and  carried 
out  with  a  stern  severity ;  that  each  dancer  was  re- 
stricted to  the  same  partner  for  the  whole  evening ; 2 
and  that  the  almost  endless  succession  of  toasts  that 
were  rigidly  enforced,  made  an  American  entertainment 
nearly  intolerable  to  a  stranger.  He  noticed,  too,  the 
significant  manner  in  which,  in  the  absence  of  titles, 
precedence  had  come  to  be  determined  by  wealth.3  A 
curious  relic  of  a  standard  of  commercial  integrity 
which  had  long  since  passed  away,  survived  in  the 
middle  of  the  century  in  the  custom  of  *  marriage  in 
the  shift.'  When  a  man  died  leaving  debts  which  his 
widow  was  unable  to  pay,  she  was  obliged,  if  she  con- 


1  Burnaby's  Travels.   See,  too,  to  it.    '  I  appeal  to  Miss  Wilkes, 
Kalm's  Travels,  ten  years  earlier,  whose  judgment  I  hear  highly 
and  the  North  American  Gazet-  commended,    would    she    think 
teer,   arts.   'Pennsylvania'    and  herself    much  indebted   to  her 
« Philadelphia.'     There  is  a  very  favourite  admirer  if  he  forced  a 
graphic  description  of  Philadel-  most  disagreeable  partner  upon 
phia,  evidently  by  an  eye-witness,  her,  for  a  long  winter's  night, 
in  that  curious  book,  the  Life  of  because  he  would  not  dance  with 
Bampfylde  Moore   Carew,  pub-  her  himself  ? '     See  on  this  cus- 
lished  in  1749,  1750.  torn  the  remarks  of   Twisleton, 

2  The  same  custom,  however,  Twisleton   and  Chabot's  Hand- 
appears  to  have  prevailed  in  Eng-  writing  of  Junius,  p.  235. 
land.    Junius,    in    one    of    his  *  Chastellux's  Travels,  i.  278. 
private  letters  to  Wilkes,  alludes 


24     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CK.  XL 

tracted  a  second  marriage,  to  leave  her  clothes  in  the 
hands  of  the  creditors,  and  to  go  through  the  ceremony 
in  her  shift.  Gradually,  however,  the  ceremony  was 
mitigated  by  the  bridegroom  lending  her  clothes  for  the 
occasion.1  The  conflicts  with  the  proprietary  govern- 
ment turned  chiefly  upon  the  question  of  how  far  the 
proprietary  estates  might  be  submitted  to  taxation,  and 
the  decision  of  the  mother  country  was  given  in  favour 
of  the  colonists.  The  conflict  was  especially  violent  on 
account  of  the  peculiarity  of  the  Pennsylvanian  Govern- 
ment, which  consisted  only  of  two  parts,  a  governor 
and  a  representative  chamber,  while  in  the  other 
colonies  the  council  or  upper  chamber  acted  the  part  of 
a  mediator  or  umpire.  A  Council  existed,  it  is  true,  in 
Pennsylvania,  but  it  had  no  legislative  power,  and  was 
restricted  to  the  function  of  advising  the  Executive. 
The  proprietary  government  was  both  weak  and  un- 
popular ;  and  Pennsylvania,  like  most  other  colonies, 
was  disturbed  by  many  outbreaks  of  lawless  violence. 

The  only  other  colony  which  it  is  necessary  particu- 
larly to  notice  on  account  of  the  part  which  it  played  in 
the  Kevolution,  is  Virginia,  the  oldest  of  the  charter 
colonies — the  colony  of  Washington,  Jefferson,  Patrick 
Henry,  the  Randolphs,  and  the  Lees.  At  the  Peace  of 
Paris,  in  1763,  it  appears  to  have  contained  about 
200,000  inhabitants,  the  large  majority  being  slaves,2 
and  its  character  was  wholly  different  from  the  Puritan 
type  of  New  England  and  from  the  industrial  type  of 
Pennsylvania.  The  Church  of  England  was  here  the 
dominant  religion,  and  it  was  established  by  law.  There 
was  a  fixed  revenue  for  the  support  of  the  civil  estab- 
lishments, derived  partly  from  Crown  quit  rents,  and 
partly  from  a  duty  on  tobacco,  which  had  been  granted 

1  Kalm.    Pinkerton,  xiii.  512.      xiii.  p.  711;  Grahame,  iv.  122; 

2  Compare,  on  the  population      Winter botham. 
of  Virginia,  Burnaby ;  Pinkerton, 


CH.  XI. 


VIRGINIA.  25 


for  ever.  A  system  of  entails  subsisted  which  was 
even  stricter  than  that  in  England,  and  it  concurred 
with  the  conditions  of  slave  labour  and  with  the  nature 
of  the  soil  to  produce  a  much  more  unequal  distribution 
of  property  than  in  the  Northern  colonies.  The  Ulster 
Presbyterians,  who  had  penetrated  largely  into  Massa- 
chusetts, Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  North  Carolina, 
had  formed  a  considerable  settlement  on  the  northern 
and  western  frontiers  of  Virginia,  and  a  few  French 
refugees  were  also  established  in  the  colony,  but  over 
the  greater  part  of  it  the  English  element  was  in  the 
free  population  almost  unmixed.  Education  in  general 
was  very  backward.  There  were  scarcely  any  manufac- 
tures, and  there  was  but  little  town  life.  Wheat  was 
produced  in  abundance,  and  the  tobacco  of  Virginia  and 
of  the  adjoining  colony  of  Maryland  was  long  esteemed 
the  finest  in  the  world.  Four  great  navigable  rivers 
enabled  the  planters  to  load  their  ships  before  their  own 
doors  at  distances  of  more  than  eighty  miles  from  the 
sea;  and  in  1758,  70,000  hogsheads  of  tobacco  were 
exported  from  Virginia.1  After  this  time  the  tobacco 
culture  seems  to  have  somewhat  dwindled,  under  the 
rising  competition  of  Georgia  and  of  the  western 
country  along  the  Mississippi. 

The  management  of  the  colony  was  chiefly  in  the 
hands  of  great  planters,  some  of  them  descended  from 
Cavaliers  who  had  emigrated  during  the  troubles  of  the 
Commonwealth.  They  were  a  high-spirited  and  haughty 
class,  extremely  tenacious  of  social  rank,  hospitable, 
convivial,  full  of  energy  and  courage,  and  as  essentially 
aristocratic  in  their  feelings,  if  not  in  their  manners, 
as  the  proudest  nobility  of  Europe.  They  resented 
bitterly  the  entry  during  the  Revolution  war  of  new 
families  into  power,  and  it  was  noticed  that  the  popu- 


1  Winterbothaxn,  iii.  112. 


26     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   en.  xi. 

lar  or  democratic  party  in  this  province  showed  more 
zeal  in  breaking  down  precedence  than  in  combating 
the  English.1  A  great  portion  of  the  colony  was  abso- 
lutely uncultivated  and  uncleared,2  but  large  landed 
properties  gave  so  much  social  consequence  that  they 
were  rarely  broken  up,  though  they  were  usually  very 
heavily  encumbered  by  debts.  In  Virginia,  as  in  the 
other  colonies,  there  were  some  yeomen,  but  this  class 
can  never  nourish  where  slavery  exists,  and  there  was 
an  idle,  dissipated,  indebted,  and  impoverished  popula- 
tion, descended  in  a  great  degree  from  younger  sons  of 
planters,  who  looked  with  contempt  on  manual  labour, 
and  who  were  quite  ready  to  throw  themselves  into  any 
military  enterprise.  A  traveller  from  Europe,  after 
passing  through  the  greater  part  of  the  colonies,  noticed 
that  in  Virginia,  for  the  first  time,  he  saw  evidence  of 
real  poverty  among  the  whites.3  The  upper  classes 
were  keen  huntsmen ;  among  all  classes  there  was  much 
gambling  and  an  intense  passion  for  horse-racing,  and 
even  in  districts  where  there  were  no  public  convey- 
ances and  no  tolerable  inns,  great  crowds  from  distances 
of  thirty  or  forty  miles  were  easily  collected  by  a  cock- 
fight.4 Among  the  lower  class  of  whites  there  was  a 
great  brutality  of  manners,  and  they  were  especially 
noted  for  their  habit  of  '  gouging '  out  each  other's 
eyes  in  boxing  matches  and  quarrels.5  c  Indians  and 
negroes/  a  traveller  observed,  '  they  scarcely  consider 
as  of  the  human  species/  Acts  of  violence,  and  even 
murder,  of  which  they  were  the  victims,  were  never 

1  Chastellux,  ii.  189.  whole  is  cultivated,  and  in  Con- 

2  Noah  Webster,  who  was  one  necticut  scarcely  a  tenth  remains 
of    the   best   of  the  early  eco-  in    a    wild    state.' — Webster's 
nomists   of    America,   wrote  in  Essays,  p.  365. 

1790  :  *  In  Virginia  and  Maryland  s  Chastellux,  ii.  190. 

I  should  question  whether  a  tenth  4  Ibid.  pp.  28,  29. 

of  the  land  is  yet  cultivated.    In  *  Ibid.  pp.  192, 193. 
New  England  more  than  half  the 


CH.  XI, 


VIRGINIA.  27 


or  scarcely  ever  punished,  and  no  negro  was  suffered 
to  give  evidence  in  a  court  of  law  except  at  the  trial  of 
a  slave  for  a  capital  offence.1  Virginia,  however,  was  a 
great  breeding  country  for  negroes,  and  chiefly,  perhaps, 
for  this  reason  they  are  said  to  have  been  treated  there 
with  somewhat  less  habitual  cruelty  than  in  the  West 
Indies.2 

Burke  has  very  truly  said  that  slave-owners  are 
often  of  all  men  the  most  jealous  of  their  freedom,  for 
they  regard  it  not  only  as  an  enjoyment  but  as  a  kind 
of  rank ;  and  it  may  be  added  that  slavery,  when  it 
does  not  coexist  with  a  thoroughly  enervating  climate, 
is  exceedingly  favourable  to  the  military  qualities,  for 
by  the  stigma  which  it  attaches  to  labour,  it  diverts 
men  from  most  peaceful  and  industrial  pursuits.  Both 
of  these  truths  were  exemplified  in  Virginia,  which  pro- 
duced a  very  large  proportion  of  the  most  prominent 
advocates  of  independence,  while  it  was  early  noted  for 
the  efficiency  of  its  militia.3  Virginia  always  claimed 
to  be  the  leading  as  well  as  the  oldest  colony  in  America, 
and  though  its  people  were  much  more  dissipated  and 
extravagant  than  those  of  the  Northern  colonies,  the 
natural  advantages  of  the  province  were  so  great,  and 
the  tobacco  crop  raised  by  the  negroes  was  so  valuable, 
that  in  the  ten  years  preceding  1770  the  average  value 
of  the  exports  from  Virginia  and  Maryland  exceeded  by 
considerably  more  than  a  third  the  united  exports  of 
the  New  England  colonies,  New  York  and  Pennsyl- 
vania.4 A  large  number  of  the  planters  appear  to  have 


1  Burnaby.    Pinkerton's  Voy-  Essays,    pp.    361-364.-    Story's 
ages,  xiii.  714,  715.  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 

2  Chastellux,  ii.  193-195.  There  i.  29-33. 

is  an  excellent  description  of  Vir-  8  Sparks'  Life  of  Washington* 

ginian  society  in  Wirt's  Life  of  Washington's  Works,  i.  133. 

Patrick   Henry.     See,  too,  Gra-  *  Hildreth,  ii.  559. 
hame,    iv.   122-124.     Webster's 


28     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   en.  H. 

been  warmly  attached  to  England,  but  much  discontent 
was  produced  by  the  interference  of  the  mother  country 
in  the  quarrel,  to  which  I  have  already  referred,  between 
the  laity  and  the  clergy  of  this  State.  The  sixty  or 
seventy  clergymen  of  the  Established  Church  received, 
in  addition  to  a  house  and  to  some  glebe  lands,  an 
annual  stipend  in  the  form  of  tobacco,  which  was 
delivered  to  them  packed  in  hogsheads  for  exportation 
at  the  nearest  warehouse.  In  a  year  when  the  tobacco 
crop  failed,  the  Assembly  passed  a  law  obliging  the 
clergy  to  receive  their  stipends  in  money  instead  of 
tobacco,  and  enforced  it  without  waiting  for  the  royal 
assent.  The  clergy  complained  that  no  allowance 
having  been  made  for  the  low  price  of  tobacco  in  good 
years,  it  was  unfair  that  they  should  be  deprived  of  the 
benefit  of  its  high  price  in  a  bad  year,  and  they  sent 
over  an  agent  to  England  and  induced  the  English 
Government  to  disallow  the  law.  Actions  were  brought 
by  the  clergy  to  recover  the  sums  out  of  which  they  had 
been  defrauded,  but  although  the  law  was  indisputably 
on  their  side  they  found  it  impossible  to  obtain  verdicts 
from  Virginian  juries.  It  was  in  pleading  against  them 
that  Patrick  Henry,  the  greatest  of  American  orators, 
first  exhibited  his  eloquence  and  his  antipathy  to 
England.  He  had  been  successively  a  storekeeper,  a 
farmer,  and  a  shopkeeper,  but  had  failed  in  all  these 
pursuits,  had  become  bankrupt,  and  at  last,  with  a  very 
tarnished  reputation,  had  entered  the  law  courts,  where 
he  soon  displayed  a  power  of  popular  eloquence  which 
had  never  yet  been  equalled,  or  perhaps  approached,  in 
America.  He  openly  told  the  juries  that  the  act  of  the 
English  Government  in  disallowing  the  proceedings  of 
the  Virginian  Assembly  was  an  instance  of  tyranny  and 
misgovernment  that  dissolved  the  political  compact,  and 
speaking  in  a  popular  cause  he  created  so  fierce  a  spirit 
in  the  colony  that  the  clergy  gave  up  all  attempts  to 


CH.   XI. 


THE  SOUTHERN  COLONIES. 


29 


obtain  what  was  due  to  them.1  In  addition  to  this 
passing  quarrel,  there  was  a  more  chronic  source  of 
anti-English  feeling  in  Virginia  in  the  commercial  re- 
strictions which  prevented  the  planters  from  sending 
their  tobacco  to  foreign  countries. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  pursue  further  a  description  of 
the  Southern  colonies.  Maryland  in  soil,  produce,  and 
social  condition  greatly  resembled  Virginia,  but  pro- 
perties were  smaller ;  a  few  rich  Roman  Catholics 
might  still  be  found  among  the  landowners,2  and  the 
colony  was  full  of  convicts,  who  were  brought  there  in 
great  numbers  from  England,  and  sold  as  slaves  to  the 
planters.  In  Maryland  the  same  law  of  real  property 
prevailed  as  in  Massachusetts  and  Pennsylvania,  but  in 
all  the  other  Southern  colonies  the  English  law,  with 
its  tendency  to  favour  great  agglomerations  of  land,  was 
maintained.3  In  the  vast  provinces  of  Carolina  the 


1  Burnaby.      Pinkerton,    xiii. 
712-714.    Wirt's  Life  of  Henry. 

2  Adams  mentions  in  1774  a 
Catholic  gentleman  named  Carroll 
(one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence)  who  lived  at 
Annapolis,  in  Maryland,  as  a  man 
of  the  first  fortune  in  America. 
'  His  income  is  10,OOOZ.  a  year 
now,  will  be  14,OOOZ.  in  two  or 
three  years  they  say ;  besides,  his 
father  has  a  vast  estate  which 
will  be  his.' — Adams'  Works,  ii. 
880. 

3  Story's  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  i.  165,  166.     In 
1777  Adams  writes  that  in  Mary- 
Laad  'they  have   but  few  mer- 
chants. They  are  chiefly  planters 
and  farmers;  the  planters   are 
those  who  raise  tobacco,  and  the 
farmers  such  as  raise  wheat,  &c. 
The  lands  are  cultivated  and  all 
sorts  of  trades  are  exercised  by 


negroes  or  by  transported  con- 
victs, which  has  occasioned  the 
planters  and  farmers  to  assume 
the  title  of  gentlemen,  and  they 
hold  their  negroes  and  convicts 
— that  is,  all  labouring  people 
and  tradesmen — in  such  con- 
tempt, thatthey  think  themselves 
a  distinct  order  of  beings.  Hence 
they  never  will  suffer  their  sons 
to  labour  or  learn  any  trade,  but 
they  bring  them  up  in  idleness 
or,  what  is  worse,  in  horse-racing, 
cock-fighting,  and  card-playing. 
.  .  .  The  object  of  the  men  of 
property  here,  the  planters,  &c., 
is  universally  wealth.  Every 
way  in  the  world  is  sought  to 
get  and  save  money;  land 
jobbers,  speculators  in  land ; 
little  generosity  to  the  public, 
little  public  spirit.' — Adams' 
Works,  ii.  436, 


80     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

climate  was  more  enervating  and  the  proportion  of 
negroes  was  much  larger  than  in  Virginia,  and  there 
were  greater  contrasts  of  wealth  and  poverty  than  in 
any  other  parts  of  British  America.  Georgia  and 
Florida  were  too  undeveloped  to  have  much  political 
or  intellectual  influence.  Through  the  whole  of  the 
Southern  colonies  there  was  much  less  severity  of 
religious  orthodoxy,  less  energy  and  moral  fibre,  less  in- 
dustrial, political,  and  intellectual  activity  than  in  the 
North,  and  a  much  greater  tendency  both  to  idleness 
and  to  amusement.  Charleston  is  said,  of  all  the 
American  towns,  to  have  approached  most  nearly  to  the 
social  refinement  of  a  great  European  capital. 

In  general,  however,  the  American  colonies  had  at- 
tained to  great  prosperity  and  to  a  high  level  of  civili- 
sation. Burnaby  noticed  that  in  a  journey  of  1,200 
miles  through  the  Northern  and  Central  colonies  he  had 
not  met  with  a  single  beggar.1  Domestic  wages  were 
much  higher,2  and  farmers  and  farm- labourers  incom- 
parably more  prosperous  than  in  England  or  in  any 
other  part  of  Europe.  *  The  Northern  yeomanry,' 
wrote  an  American  economist  at  a  time  when  America 
can  have  done  little  more  than  recover  from  the  losses 
of  the  War  of  Independence,  '  not  only  require  more 
clothing  than  the  Southern,  but  they  live  on  expensive 
food  and  drinks.  Every  man,  even  the  poorest,  makes 
use  of  tea,  sugar,  spirits,  and  a  multitude  of  articles 
which  are  not  consumed  by  the  labourers  of  any  other 
country.  .  .  .  Most  of  the  labouring  people  in  New 
England  eat  meab  twice  a  day,  and  as  much  as  their 


1  Pinkerton's     Voyages,    xiii.  the  poor  emigrants  from  Europe 
750.  ^  sold  themselves  to  the  planters 

2  Ibid.  xiii.  500.     It  must  be  "  for  a  term  of  years,  and  some- 
remembered,  however,  that  the  times  in  this  way  paid  their  pas  •• 
slaves  in  America  were  not  only  sage. 

negroes  and  convicts.     Many  of 


en.  xi.  AMERICAN  EDUCATION.  31 

appetites  demand.'  Owing  to  the  admirable  parish 
libraries,  there  were  New  England  parishes  'where 
almost  every  householder  has  read  the  works  of  Addi- 
son,  Sherlock,  Atterbury,  Watts,  Young,  and  other 
similar  writings,  and  will  converse  handsomely  on  the 
subjects  of  which  they  treat ; ' l  and  Boston,  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  and  Charleston,  would  in  almost  all  the 
elements  of  civilisation  have  ranked  high  among  the 
provincial  towns  of  Europe.  When  Kalm  visited  Canada 
in  1750,  he  found  that  there  was  not  a  single  printing 
press  in  the  whole  territory  possessed  by  the  French,54 
but  before  that  time  most  of  the  more  important  British 
colonies  possessed  a  newspaper,  and  by  the  close  of 
1765  at  least  forty-three  newspapers  are  said  to  have 
been  established  in  America.3  There  were  seven  im- 
portant colleges,4  and  there  were  at  least  four  literary 
magazines.5 

In  New  England,  education  was  always  conducted 
at  home,  but  in  the  Southern  and  some  of  the  Middle 
colonies  the  rich  planters  were  accustomed  to  send  their 
sons  for  education  to  England.6  In  these  States  educa- 
tion was  almost  a  monopoly  of  the  rich  ;  schoolmasters 
were  despised,  and  schools  were  extremely  rare.  Mar- 
tin, the  last  royal  governor  in  North  Carolina,  stated 
that  in  his  time  there  were  only  two  schools  in  the 
whole  colony.7  In  the  first  thirty  years  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  there  was  but  one  grammar  school,  in 
the  next  forty  years  there  were  but  three  in  the  great 
province  of  South  Carolina.8  Noah  Webster  mentions 

'  Webster's  Essays,  pp.  339,  4  Harvard,  William  and  Mary, 

366.  This  was  published  in  1790.  Yale,  New  Jersey,  King's,  Phila- 

3  Pinkerton,  xiii.  660.  delphia,  and  Ehode  Island. 

«  Tyler's  Hist,   of   American          6  Tyler,  ii.  305,  306. 
Literature,  ii.  304.     Miller,  how-          6  Miller,  iii.  191, 192,  194. 
ever,  gives  a  much  lower  esti-  7  See       Sabine's      American 

mate   (Retrospect  of    the  Eigh-  Loyalists,  p.  35. 
teenth  Century,  iii.  90-92).  8  Miller's  Retrospect,  iii.  230. 


82     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  21. 

that  he  once  saw  a  copy  of  instructions  given  to  a  re- 
presentative of  Maryland  by  his  constituents,  and  he 
found  that  out  of  more  than  a  hundred  names  that  were 
subscribed,  *  three-fifths  were  marked  by  a  cross  be- 
cause the  men  could  not  write/  He  ascertained  in 
1785  that  the  circulation  of  newspapers  in  the  single 
New  England  State  of  Connecticut  was  equal  to  that 
in  the  whole  American  territory  south  of  Pennsylvania,1 
and  he  has  recorded  the  extraordinary  fact  that  in  some 
parts  of  the  colonies  the  education  of  the  young  was 
frequently  confided  to  the  care  of  purchased  convicts.2 
All  the  great  seminaries  of  learning  lay  in  the  Northern 
and  Middle  colonies  and  in  Virginia,  and  the  English 
education  of  the  rich  planters  of  the  South  had  greatly 
coloured  their  political  opinions.  At  the  same  time 
they  formed  the  more  important  part  of  the  very  small 
leisure  class  which  existed  in  America ;  and  it  is  a  re- 
markable fact  that  the  Southern  colonies,  though  in 
general  far  behind  the  Northern  ones,  produced  no  less 
than  five  out  of  the  first  seven  presidents  of  the  United 
States. 

In  the  Northern  colonies,  on  the  contrary,  education 
was  both  very  widely  diffused  and  very  equal.  The 
average  was  exceedingly  high,  but  there  were  no  emi- 
nences. The  men  were  early  devoted  to  money-making, 
but  it  was  noticed  that  there  was  a  general  ambition  to 
educate  women  above  their  fortunes,  and  that  in  some 
towns  there  were  three  times  as  many  '  genteelly  bred J 
women  as  men.3  The  absence  of  any  considerable  leisure 

1  Webster's  Essays,  338,  360.  the  war  it  was  a  frequent  prac- 

2  '  The  most  important  busi-  tice  for  gentlemen   to  purchase 
ness  in  civil  society  is  in  many  convicts  who    had  been  trans- 
parts  of  America  committed  to  ported  for  their  crimes  and  em- 
the  most  worthless    characters.  ploy  them  as  private  tutors  in 
.  .  .  Education  is  sunk  to  a  level  their  families  ?  ' — Ibid.  pp.  17- 
with  the  most  menial  services.  19.     See,  too,  pp.  55,  338. 

t  .  .  Will  it  be  denied  that  before          •  Ibid.  p.  30. 


CH.  xi.  AMERICAN  EDUCATION.  83 

class,  the  difficulty  of  procuring  books,1  and  especially 
the  intensely  commercial  and  money-making  character 
of  the  colonists,  were  fatal  to  original  literature ;  and, 
except  for  a  few  theological  works,  American  literary 
history  before  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
would  be  almost  a  blank.  Berkeley  wrote  his  '  Alci- 
phron '  and  his  *  Minute  Philosopher J  in  Rhode  Island  ; 
but  the  first  native  writer  of  real  eminence  was  Jona- 
than Edwards,  who  was  born  in  1703.  He  was  soon 
followed  by  Benjamin  Franklin,  who  in  literature,  as 
in  science,  took  a  place  among  the  greatest  of  his 
contemporaries.  Eittenhouse,  who  was  born  near  Phila- 
delphia in  1732,  attained  some  distinction  in  astro- 
nomy ;  and  among  the  Americans  who  sought  a  home  in 
England  were  the  painters  Copley  and  West,  and  the 
grammarian  Lindley  Murray.  Several  of  those  noble 
public  libraries  which  are  now  one  of  the  great  glories 
of  .America  had  already  arisen;  the  first  circulating 
library  was  established  at  Philadelphia  in  173 1,2  and 
between  1763  and  1770  a  medical  school  was  founded 
in  the  same  city,  and  courses  of  lectures  were  for  the 
first  time  given  on  anatomy,  on  the  institutes  of  medi- 
cine, on  the  Linnaean  system  of  botany,  and  on  the  dis- 
coveries of  Lavoisier  in  chemistry.3 


1  In  that  curious    book,  the  is  but  one  tittle  bookseller's  shop, 

Life  of  Bampfylde  Moore  Carew,  and  none  at  all  in  Virginia,  Mary- 

which  was  published  in  1749,  land,     Carolina,  Barbadoes,    or 

and  which  shows  great  personal  any  of  the  sugar  islands,'  p.  199. 

knowledge  of  America,  it  is  said :  As  late  as  1760  it  is  said  that 

'Thore  are  five  printing  houses  'there  were  no  Greek  types  in 

[in  Boston],  at  one  of  which  the  the    country,    or  if  there  were 

Boston  Gazette  is  printed,  and  that  no  printer  knew  how  to  set 

comes  out  twice  a  week.    The  them.' — Tudor's  Life    of   Otis, 

presses  here  are  generally  full  of  p.  16. 

work,  which  is  in  a  great  measure  2  Franklin's  Life,  p.  99. 

owing  to  the  colleges  and  schools  •  Miller's    Retrospect    of    the 

for  useful  learning  in  New  Eng-  Eighteenth    Century,     iii.    236, 

land,  whereas  at  New  York  there  237,  282.     This  book  containa 


34     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  TI. 

The  moral  and  political  aspect  of  the  country  pre- 
sented a  much  more  blended  and  doubtful  picture,  and 
must  have  greatly  perplexed  those  who  tried  to  cast  the 
horoscope  of  America.  Nations  are  essentially  what 
their  circumstances  make  them,  and  the  circumstances 
of  the  American  colonists  were  exceedingly  peculiar. 
A  country  where  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  inhabi- 
tants were  recent  immigrants,  drawn  from  different 
nations,  and  professing  various  creeds ;  where,  owing 
to  the  vast  extent  of  territory  and  the  imperfection  of 
the  means  of  communication,  they  were  thrown  very 
slightly  in  contact  with  one  another,  and  where  the 
money-making  spirit  was  peculiarly  intense,  was  not 
likely  to  produce  much  patriotism  or  community  of 
feeling.  On  the  other  hand,  the  same  circumstances 
had  developed  to  an  almost  unprecedented  degree 
energy,  variety  of  resource,  independence  of  character, 
capacity  for  self-government.  In  a  simple  and  labo- 
rious society  many  of  the  seed-plots  of  European  vice 
were  unknown.  Small  freeholders  cultivating  their 
own  lands  were  placed  under  conditions  very  favour- 
able to  moral  development,  and  the  wild  life  of  the 
explorer,  the  pioneer,  and  the  huntsman  gave  an  un- 
bounded scope  to  those  superfluous  energies  which 
become  so  dangerous  when  they  are  repressed  or  mis- 
directed. Beliefs  that  had  long  been  waning  in  Europe 
retained  much  vigour  in  the  colonies,  and  there  were 
little  sects  or  societies  which  represented  the  fervour 
and  purity  of  the  early  Christians  perhaps  as  perfectly 
as  anything  upon  earth.  Travellers  noticed  that,  ex- 
cept where  slavery  had  exercised  its  demoralising  influ- 
ence, the  intercourse  between  the  sexes  was  singularly 
free  and  at  the  same  time  singularly  pure.1  There  was 

an    admirable    account    of    the      Hist,  of  the  United  States,  ii.  513. 
early  intellectual  history  of  the  l  Chastellux,  i.  153,  154.    Me. 

Bolonies.      See,   too,  iJi^dreth's      moires  de  Lafayette,  i.  25.     See, 


CH.  xi.  AMERICAN  MORALS.  35 

a  great  simplicity  and  freshness  of  character,  a  spirit 
of  warm  hospitality,  a  strong  domestic  feeling.  Politi- 
cal corruption,  which  was  the  great  cancer  of  English 
life,  was  almost  unknown,  though  there  were  serious 
scandals  connected  with  the  law  courts,  and  though  the 
level  of  commercial  integrity  was  probably  lower  than 
in  England.  A  large  proportion  of  the  men  who  played 
a  conspicuous  part  in  the  events  to  be  recorded,  were 
men  of  high  private  morals,  simple,  domestic,  honour- 
able, and  religious.  When  the  conflict  with  England 
became  inevitable,  one  of  the  first  proceedings  of  the 
different  States  was  to  appoint  days  of  humiliation  and 
prayer,  and  Washington  notes  in  his  private  diary  how 
on  this  occasion  he  *  went  to  church  and  fasted  all  day/ 
The  most  stringent  rules  were  made  in  the  American 
camp  to  suppress  all  games  of  chance  and  to  punish 
all  profane  language.  John  Adams,  recounting  week 
after  week  in  his  diary  the  texts  of  the  sermons  he  had 
heard,  and  his  estimate  of  the  comparative  merits 
of  the  preachers,  when  he  was  leading  the  popular 
party  in  the  very  agony  of  the  struggle  for  the  in- 
dependence of  America,  is  a  typical  example  of  a 
class  of  politicians  strangely  unlike  the  revolutionists 
of  Europe. 

The  most  serious  evil  of  the  colonies  was  the  number 
and  force  of  the  influences  which  were  impelling  large 
classes  to  violence  and  anarchy,  brutalising  them  by 
accustoming  them  to  an  unrestrained  exercise  of  power, 
and  breaking  down  among  them  that  salutary  respect 
for  authority  which  lies  at  the  root  of  all  true  national 
greatness.  The  influence  of  negro  slavery  in  this  respect 
can  hardly  be  overrated,  and  in  the  slave  States  a 
master  could  commit  any  act  of  violence  and  outrage  on 
a  negro  with  practical  impunity. 

too,  the  very  engaging  picture  manners  in  the  M&moirei  du 
of  Pennsylvanian  morals  and  Comte  de  S&gur. 


36     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

The  relations  of  the  colonists  to  the  Indian  tribes 
were  scarcely  less  demoralising.  White  men  planted 
among  savages  and  removed  from  the  control  of  Euro- 
pean opinion  seldom  fail  to  contract  the  worst  vices  of 
tyrants. 

The  voluminous  and  very  copious  despatches  of  Sir 
W.  Johnson  and  of  Mr.  Stuart,  who  during  many  years 
had  the  management  of  Indian  affairs,  are,  on  the 
whole,  extremely  creditable  to  the  writers.  They  show 
that  the  Government  laboured  with  great  humanity, 
equity,  and  vigilance  to  protect  the  rights  of  the  Indians, 
but  they  also  show  that  they  had  to  encounter  insupe- 
rable difficulties  in  their  task.  The  Executive  was 
miserably  weak.  There  were  usually  no  troops  within 
reach.  Juries  in  Indian  cases  could  never  be  trusted, 
and  public  opinion  on  the  frontier  looked  upon  Indians 
as  little  better  than  wild  beasts.  The  ^French  had  in 
this  respect  succeeded  much  better.  The  strong  Execu- 
tive of  Canada  guarded  the  Indians  effectually  from 
depredations,  restricted  commercial  dealings  with  them 
to  the  better  class  of  traders,  and  attached  them  by  a 
warm  feeling  of  gratitude.  But  the  despatches  of 
Johnson  and  Stuart  are  full  of  accounts  of  how  the 
English  settlers  continually  encroached  on  the  terri- 
tory which  was  allotted  by  treaty  to  the  Indians; 
how  the  rules  that  had  been  established  for  the  regu- 
lation of  the  Indian  trade  were  systematically  vio- 
lated ;  how  traders  of  the  lowest  kind  went  among  the 
savages,  keeping  them  in  a  state  of  continual  drunken- 
ness till  they  had  induced  them  to  surrender  their 
land ;  how  the  goods  that  were  sold  to  Indians  were  of 
the  most  fraudulent  description ;  how  many  traders  de- 
liberately excited  outrages  against  their  rivals ;  how 
great  numbers  of  Indians  who  were  perfectly  peace- 
ful, and  loyal  to  the  English,  were  murdered  without 
a  shadow  of  provocation ;  and  how  these  crimes  were 


CH.  xi.  TREATMENT   OF  INDIANS.  37 

perpetrated  without  punishment   and  almost   without 
blame.1 

A  few  voices  were  no  doubt  raised  in  the  colonies 
on  their  behalf.  Franklin  wrote  with  honest  indignation 
denouncing  some  horrible  murders  that  had  been  per- 
petrated in  Pennsylvania.  The  Quakers  were  usually 
noted  for  their  righteous  dealing  with  the  Indians.  John 
Eliot  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  Brainerd  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  had  laboured  with  admirable  zeal 
for  the  conversion  of  the  Indians,  and  the  Society  for  the 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel  had  planted  several  missionary 
stations  among  them.  In  general,  however,  the  French 
missionaries  were  far  more  successful.  This  was  partly, 
no  doubt,  owing  to  their  creed,  for  Catholicism,  being  a 
highly  pictorial,  authoritative,  and  material  religion, 
is  much  more  suited  than  Protestantism  to  influence 
savages  and  idolaters ;  but  much  also  depended  on  the 
great  superiority  of  the  Catholic  missionaries  in  organ- 
isation, education,  and  even  character.  The  strange 
spectacle  was  often  shown  of  Presbyterians,  Baptists, 
and  Anglicans  contending  in  rivalry  for  converts.  New 
England  Puritans  tried  to  persuade  their  converts  that 
their  dances,  their  rejoicings  at  marriages,  and  their 
most  innocent  amusements  were  wrong.  Many  mis- 
sionaries were  absolutely  unacquainted  with  the  lan- 
guage of  those  to  whom  they  preached,  and  they  had 
no  interpreters  except  ignorant  backwoodsmen.2  It  is 

1  Letters  on  Indian  affairs  946-948,  953-977. 
form  a  very  large  proportion  of  2  Ibid.  vii.  969,  970.  Sir  W. 
the  papers  (Plantations,  General)  Johnson  mentions  that  he  was 
on  America  in  the  Eecord  Office.  himself  present  when  one  of  the 
The  most  valuable  have  been  missionaries,  preaching  to  the 
printed  in  the  admirable  collec-  Indians,  *  delivered  as  his  text, 
tion  of  Documents  relative  to  the  "  For  God  is  no  respecter  of  per- 
Colonial  History  of  New  York,  sons,"  and  desired  it  to  be  ex- 
published  by  order  of  the  Legisla-  plained  to  them  ;  the  interpreter 
ture  of  that  State.  See  e.g.  vol.  (though  the  best  in  that  country) 
vii.  pp.  602,  637-641,  837,  838,  told  the  Indians  that  "  God  had 


38      ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  M. 

a  significant  fact  that  in  tlie  French  war  the  Indians 
were  usually  on  the  side  of  the  French,  and  in  the  War 
of  Independence  on  the  side  of  the  Government,  and 
the  explanation  is  probably  chiefly  to  be  found  in  the 
constant  and  atrocious  outrages  which  they  endured  from 
the  American  traders. 

To  these  elements  of  anarchy  must  be  added  the 
enormous  extent  of  smuggling  along  the  American 
coast,  and  also  the  extreme  weakness  of  the  Govern- 
ment, which  made  it  impossible  to  enforce  any  un- 
popular law  or  repress  any  riot.  There  was  no  standing 
army,  and  the  position  of  the  governors  was  in  several 
States  one  of  the  most  humiliating  dependence.  In 
the  four  New  England  States,  in  New  Jersey,  and  in 
New  York,  all  the  executive  and  judicial  authorities 
depended  mainly  or  entirely  for  their  salaries  upon  an 
annual  vote  of  the  Assembly,  which  was  at  all  times 
liable  to  be  withdrawn  or  diminished.  It  was  not  pos- 
sible under  such  circumstances  that  any  strong  feeling 
of  respect  for  authority  could  subsist,  and  the  absence 
of  any  great  superiority  either  in  rank  or  in  genius 
contributed  to  foster  a  spirit  of  unbounded  self-con- 
fidence among  the  people. 

The  relation  of  this  great,  rising,  and  civilised  com- 
munity to  the  parent  State  was  a  question  of  transcendent 
importance  to  the  future  of  the  Empire.  The  general 
principle  which  was  adopted  was,  that  each  colony 
should  regulate  with  perfect  freedom  its  local  affairs, 
but  that  matters  of  imperial  concern,  and  especially 
the  commercial  system,  should  remain  under  the  control 
of  the  Imperial  Parliament.  The  common  law  and  the 

no  love  for  such  people  as  them,"  not  been  present  the  error  must 

on  which  I  immediately  stopped  have   passed,    and   many  more 

him  and  explained  the  text,  as  I  might  have  been  committed  in 

did  the  rest  of  his  discourse,  to  the  course  of  the  sermon.' 
prevent  farther  mistakes ;  had  I 


CH.  ix.  RELATIONS  OF  THE  COLONIES  TO  PARLIAMENT.  39 

statute  law,  as  far  as  they  existed  before  the  colonisa- 
tion, were  extended  to  the  colonies,  but  the  relation 
of  the  colonial  legislatures  to  the  Government  at  home 
was  not  very  accurately  defined.  The  original  charters, 
while  authorising  them  to  levy  taxes  and  make  laws 
for  the  colonies,  had  declared  that  the  colonists  should 
be  deemed  natural-born  English  subjects,  and  should 
enjoy  all  the  privileges  and  immunities  thereof;  that 
the  laws  of  England,  in  so  far  as  they  were  applicable 
to  their  circumstances,  should  be  in  force  in  the  colonies, 
and  that  no  law  should  be  made  in  the  colonies  which 
was  repugnant  or  did  not,  'as  near  as  may  be  con- 
veniently,' conform  to  the  laws  of  England.  A  statute 
of  William  provided  that  all  colonial  laws  which  were 
repugnant  to  laws  made  in  England,  *  so  far  as  such 
law  shall  relate  to  and  mention  the  said  plantations, 
are  illegal,  null,  and  void.' l 

These  restrictions  are  of  a  very  vague  description, 
and,  as  is  often  the  case  in  English  law,  the  meaning 
was  determined  more  by  a  course  of  precedents  than  by 
express  definition.  Great  remedial  measures,  guarantee- 
ing the  rights  of  subjects,  such  as  the  Great  Charter  or 
the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  were  in  full  force  in  the 
colonies;  but  the  colonial  legislatures,  with  the  entire 
assent  of  the  Home  Government,  assumed  the  right  of 
modifying  almost  every  portion  both  of  the  common 
and  of  the  statute  law,  with  a  view  to  their  special 
circumstances.  The  laws  relating  to  real  property,  the 
penal  code,  and  the  laws  relating  to  religious  belief, 
were  freely  dealt  with,  and  it  became  a  recognised 
principle  that  the  colonies  might  legislate  for  them- 
selves as  they  pleased,  provided  they  left  untouched 
allegiance  to  the  Crown  and  Acts  of  the  English  Par- 
liament in  which  they  were  expressly  mentioned. 

1  7  and  8  William  III.  cap.  22.     Story's  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  i.  139,  147-149. 
5 


40  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.     CH.  xi. 

The  scope  of  the  Act  of  William  establishing  this 
latter  restriction  was  also  determined  by  precedent. 
The  theory  of  the  English  Government  was,  that  Par- 
liament had  by  right  an  absolute  and  unrestricted 
power  of  legislation  over  the  dependencies  of  England. 
The  colonies  were  of  the  nature  of  corporations  which 
lay  within  its  supreme  dominion,  but  which  were  en- 
trusted  with  certain  corporate  powers  of  self-govern- 
ment. In  an  early  period  of  colonial  history  this  theory 
had  been  contested  in  the  colonies,  and  especially  in 
Massachusetts  ;  and  it  had  been  contended  that  the 
colonies,  having  been  founded  in  most  instances  with- 
out any  assistance  from  the  Home  Government,  and 
having  received  their  charters  from  the  Sovereign,  and 
not  from  the  Parliament,  were  in  the  position  of  Scot- 
land before  the  Union,  bound  in  allegiance  to  the  King, 
but  altogether  independent  of  the  English  Parliament, 
This  theory,  however,  was  inconsistent  with  the  whole 
course  of  English  legislation  about  the  colonies,  with 
the  terms  of  the  charters,  and  with  the  claims  of  the 
colonists  to  rights  that  were  derived  exclusively  from 
English  law.  It  was  not  within  the  prerogative  of  the 
Sovereign  either  to  emancipate  English  subjects  by 
charter  from  the  dominion  of  Parliament,  or  to  confer 
upon  aliens  the  character  of  Englishmen.  The  claim 
to  be  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  Parliament  was  accord- 
ingly soon  dropped  by  the  colonists ;  and,  although  it 
revived  at  the  era  of  the  Revolution,  we  find  Massachu-  -, 
setts  in  1757,  1761,  and  1768,  acknowledging,  in  the 
most  explicit  and  emphatic  terms,  the  right  of  the 
English  Parliament  to  bind  the  colonies  by  its  Acts.1 

The  only  modern  Acts  of  Parliament,  however,  which 
were  esteemed  binding  were  those  in  which  the  colonies 
were  expressly  mentioned ;  and  these  Acts  dealt  with 

1  Story's  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  i.  174. 


CH.  xr.  RELATIONS  TO  PARLIAMENT  AND  THE  CROWN.  41 

them,  not  as  separate  units,  but  as  integral  parts  of  one 
connected  Empire.  It  was  the  recognised  right  of  Par- 
liament to  establish  a  uniform  commercial  system,  ex- 
tending over  the  whole  Empire,  and  binding  every 
portion  of  it.  There  were  also  some  matters  which 
were  mainly,  if  not  exclusively,  of  colonial  interest,  on 
which  Parliament  undertook  to  legislate,  and  its  autho- 
rity was  submitted  to,  though  not  without  some  protest 
and  remonstrance.  It  was  sometimes  necessary  to 
establish  a  general  regulation  binding  on  all  the  colo- 
nies ;  and  as  there  existed  no  general  or  central  colonial 
government,  it  devolved  upon  the  Imperial  Parliament 
to  enforce  it.  On  this  principle  Parliament  introduced 
the  English  Post-office  system  into  the  colonies,  deter- 
mined the  rates  of  postage,  regulated  the  currency, 
created  new  facilities  for  the  collection  of  debts,  es- 
tablished a  uniform  law  of  naturalisation,  and  even 
legislated  about  joint-stock  companies.1 

The  relation  of  the  colonial  governments  to  the 
Crown  varied  in  some  degree  in  the  different  colonies. 
As  a  general  rule  the  Governor  and  the  Council  repre- 
sented the  royal  authority,  and,  except  in  the  case  of 
the  three  colonies  of  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  and 
Maryland,  the  Crown  had  a  right  of  disallowing  laws 
which  had  passed  through  all  their  stages  in  America.2 
The  royal  veto  had  fallen  into  complete  disuse  in  Eng- 
land, but  in  the  case  of  colonial  legislation  it  was  still 
not  unfrequently  employed.  With  the  exception,  how- 
ever, of  measures  relating  to  commerce,  colonial  Acts 
were  rarely  or  never  annulled,  except  when  they  tended 
to  injure  or  oppress  some  class  of  colonists.  As  the 
Governor  was  usually  paid  by  an  annual  vote  of  the 
Assembly,  and  as  he  had  very  little  patronage  to  dis- 
pose of,  the  Executive  in  the  colonies  was  extremely 

1  Hildreth,  ii.  517.  f  Story,  i.  158. 


42     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,   cii.  xi. 

weak,  and  the  colonists,  in  spite  of  the  occasional  exer- 
cise of  the  royal  veto,  had  probably  a  much  more  real 
control  over  legislation  than  the  people  of  England, 
Trial  by  jury,  both  in  civil  and  criminal  cases,  was  as 
universal  as  in  England ;  but  an  appeal  lay  from  all 
the  highest  courts  of  judicature  in  the  colonies  to  the 
King  in  Council. 

There  were  assuredly  no  other  colonies  in  the  world 
so  favourably  situated.  They  had,  however,  before  the 
passing  of  the  Stamp  Act,  one  real  a^d  genuine  griev- 
ance, which  was  already  preparing  the  way  to  the  dis- 
ruption of  the  Empire.  I  have  already  in  a  former 
volume  enumerated  the  chief  restrictions  of  the  com- 
mercial code  ;  but  it  is  so  important  that  the  true 
extent  of  colonial  grievances  should  be  clearly  under- 
stood, that  I  trust  the  reader  will  excuse  some  repeti- 
tion in  my  narrative.  The  colonies  were  not,  like 
Ireland,  excluded  from  the  Navigation  Act,  and  they 
had  no  special  reason  to  complain  that  their  trade  was 
restricted  to  vessels  built  either  in  England  or  in  the 
plantations,  and  manned  to  the  extent  of  two-thirds  of 
their  crew  by  British  subjects.  In  this  respect  they 
were  on  an  exact  level  with  the  mother  country,  and 
the  arrangement  was  supposed  to  be  very  beneficial  to 
both.  It  was,  however,  undoubtedly  a  great  evil  that 
the  colonists  were  confined  to  the  British  dominions  for 
a  market  for  their  tobacco,  cotton,  silk,  coffee,  indigo, 
naval  stores,  skins,  sugar,  and  rice,1  as  well  as  many 
less  important  articles ;  that  they  were  prohibited  from 
carrying  any  goods  from  Europe  to  America  which  had 
not  first  been  landed  in  England,  and  that  every  form 
of  colonial  manufacture  which  could  possibly  compete 
with  the  manufactures  of  England  was  deliberately 

1  The  law  about  the  last  three      sometimes  among  the  unenume* 
articles  varied.    They  were  some-      rated  articles, 
times   among   the    enumerated, 


CH.  xi.  THE  COMMERCIAL  SYSTEM.  43 

• 

crushed.  In  the  interest  of  the  English  wool  manufac- 
ture they  were  forbidden  to  export  their  own  woollen 
goods  to  any  country  whatever,  or  even  to  send  them 
from  colon}^  to  colony.  In  the  interests  of  English  iron 
merchants  they  were  forbidden  to  set  up  any  steel  fur- 
naces or  slitting  mills  in  the  colonies.  In  the  interest 
of  English  hatters  they  were  forbidden  to  export  their 
hats,  or  even  to  send  them  from  one  colony  to  another, 
and  serious  obstacles  were  thrown  in  the  way  of  those 
who  sought  to  establish  a  manufacture  for  purely  home 
consumption.  In  the  interest  of  the  English  sugar 
colonies,  the  importation  of  sugar,  molasses,  and  rum 
from  the  French  West  India  islands,  which  was  of 
extreme  importance  to  the  New  England  colonies,  was 
virtually  forbidden.  Every  act  of  the  colonial  legisla- 
tures which  sought  to  encourage  a  native  or  discourage 
an  English  branch  of  trade,  was  watched  with  jealous 
scrutiny.  Thus  in  1761  the  Assembly  of  South  Caro- 
lina, being  sensible  of  the  great  social  and  political 
danger  arising  from  the  enormous  multiplication  of 
negroes  in  the  colony,  passed  a  law  imposing  a  heavy 
duty  upon  the  importation  of  slaves ;  but  as  the  slave 
trade  was  one  of  the  most  lucrative  branches  of  English 
commerce,  the  law  was  rescinded  by  the  Crown.  In 
the  same  year  instructions  were  sent  to  the  Governor  of 
New  Hampshire  to  refuse  his  assent  to  any  law  impos- 
ing duties  on  negroes  imported  into  the  colonies.1 

There  is,  no  doubt,  much  to  be  said  in  palliation  of 
the  conduct  of  England.  If  Virginia  was  prohibited 
from  sending  her  tobacco  to  any  European  country 
except  England,  Englishmen  were  also  prohibited  from 
purchasing  any  tobacco  except  that  which  came  from 
America  or  Bermuda.  If  many  of  the  trades  and  manu- 
factures in  which  the  colonies  were  naturally  most 

1  Grahame,  iv.  79. 


44     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   en.  «, 

i 

fitted  to  excel  were  restricted  or  crushed  by  law, 
English  bounties  encouraged  the  cultivation  of  indigo, 
and  the  importation  into  England  of  pitch,  tar,  hemp, 
flax,  and  ship  timber  from  America,  and  several  arti- 
cles of  American  produce  obtained  a  virtual  monopoly 
of  the  English  market  by  their  exemption  from  the 
duties  which  were  imposed  on  similar  articles  imported 
from  foreign  countries.  If  the  commercial  system 
diminished  very  seriously  the  area  of  profitable  com- 
merce that  was  open  to  the  colonies,  it  at  least  left 
them  the  elements  of  a  great  national  prosperity.  The 
trade  with  England  and  the  trade  with  the  English 
West  Indies  were  large  and  lucrative,  and  the  export 
trade  to  foreign  countries  was  only  prohibited  in  the 
case  of  those  articles  which  were  enumerated  in  the 
Navigation  Act.  Among  the  non-enumerated  articles 
were  some  of  the  chief  productions  of  the  colonies — 
grain  of  all  kinds,  salted  provisions,  timber,  fish,  and 
rum ;  and  in  all  these  articles  the  colonists  were  suffered 
to  trade  with  foreign  nations  without  any  other  re- 
striction than  that  of  sending  them  in  ships  built  and 
chiefly  manned  by  British  subjects.  They  were,  how- 
ever, forbidden,  in  the  ordinary  state  of  the  law,  to  send 
salted  provisions  or  any  kind  of  grain  except  rice  to 
England.  The  prohibition  of  the  extremely  important 
trade  with  the  French  West  Indies  was  allowed,  with 
the  tacit  connivance  of  the  Government,  to  become  for 
a  long  time  little  more  than  a  dead  letter.  The  pro- 
vision which  prevented  the  colonists  from  receiving  any 
European  goods  except  direct  from  England  was  much 
mitigated  before  1763,  and  to  some  extent  after  that 
date,  by  the  system  of  drawbacks  freeing  these  goods 
from  the  greater  part  of  the  duties  that  would  have  been 
paid  in  England,  so  that  many  continental  goods  were 
actually  sold  more  cheaply  in  America  than  in  England. 
Tt  was  a  great  grievance  and  absurdity  that,  for  the 


CH.  xi.  THE  COMMERCIAL  SYSTEM.  45 

sake  of  a  few  Portugal  merchants  in  London  who 
charged  a  commission  on  the  goods  that  passed  through 
their  hands,  the  colonists  were  forbidden  to  import 
directly  wine,  oil,  and  fruit  from  Portugal,  and  were 
obliged  to  send  them  the  long  journey  to  England,  to 
be  landed  there,  and  then  reshipped  for  America.  But 
in  practice  this  rule  was  somewhat  mitigated,  and 
American  ships  carrying  fish  to  Portugal  were  tacitly 
allowed  to  bring  back  small  quantities  of  wine  and  fruit 
as  ship  stores.1 

It  is  a  gross  andflagrant  misrepresentation  to  de- 
scribe the  commercial  policy  of  England  as  exceptionally 
tyrannical.  As  Adam  Smith  truly  said,  '  Every  Euro- 
pean nation  had  endeavoured  more  or  less  to  monopolise 
to  itself  the  commerce  of  its  colonies,  and  upon  that 
account  had  prohibited  the  ships  of  foreign  nations  from 
trading  to  them,  and  had  prohibited  them  from  importing 
European  goods  from  any  foreign  nation  ; '  and  '  though 
the  policy  of  Great  Britain  with  regard  to  the  trade  of 
her  colonies  has  been  dictated  by  the  same  mercantile 
spirit  as  that  of  other  nations,  it  has,  upon  the  whole, 
been  less  illiberal  and  oppressive  than  that  of  any  of 
them.' 2  Even  France,  which  was  the  most  liberal  of 

1  Letters  of  Governor  Bernard  part  of  the  world,  to  confine  (as 
on  the  Trade  and  Government  of  far  as  laws  can  confine)  the  trade 
America,  p.  4.  See,  too,  Franklin's  of  the  colonies  to  the   mother 
Causes  of  American  Discontents  country.  .  .  .  Thus  the  trade  of 
before    1768.      Works,  iv.    250,  the  Spanish  colonies  is  confined 
251.     Wealth  of  Nations,  book  by  law  to  Old  Spain,  the  trade 
iv.  ch.  iv.,  vii.  of  the  Brazils  to  Portugal,  the 

2  Wealth  of  Nations,  book  iv.  trade  of  Martinico  and  the  other 
ch.  vii.     See,  too,  Gentz  On  the  French  colonies  to  Old  France, 
State  of  Europe  before  and  after  and  the  trade  of   Curacoa  and 
the  French  Revolution  (English  Surinam  to  Holland.  But  in  one 
trans.),    pp.     295-308.      'Ever  instance    the   Hollanders  make 
since  the  discovery  of  America,'  an    exception   (perhaps    a  wise 
says  Dean  Tucker,  'it  has  been  one),  viz.  in  the  case   of  Eusta- 
the   system   of  every  European  tia,  which  is  open  to  all  the  world.' 
Tower  which  had  colonies  in  that  — Tucker's  Four  Tracts,  p.  133. 


46     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi, 

continental  nations  in  her  dealings  with  her  colonies, 
imposed  commercial  restrictions  more  severe  than  those 
of  England.  Not  only  was  the  trade  of  French  Canada, 
like  that  of  British  America,  a  monopoly  of  the  mother 
country ;  it  was  not  even  open  without  restriction  to 
Frenchmen  and  to  Canadians,  for  the  important  trade  in 
beavers  belonged  exclusively  to  a  company  in  France, 
and  could  only  be  exercised  under  its  authorisation.1 

Still,  when  every  allowance  has  been  made,  it  is  un- 
doubtedly true  that  the  commercial  policy  of  England 
had  established  a  real  opposition  of  interest  between 
the  mother  country  and  her  colonies  ;  and  if  the  policy 
which  was  the  proximate  cause  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution was  chiefly  due  to  the  King  and  to  the  landed 
gentry,  the  ultimate  cause  may  be  mainly  traced  to  the 
great  influence  which  the  commercial  classes  possessed 
in  British  legislation.  The  expulsion  of  the  French 
from  Canada  made  it  possible  for  the  Americans  to 
dispense  with  English  protection.  The  commercial  re- 
strictions alone  made  it  their  interest  to  do  so.  If  the 
'Wealth  of  Nations'  had  been  published  a  century 
earlier,  and  if  its  principles  had  passed  into  legislation, 
it  is  quite  possible  that  the  separation  of  England  and 
her  colonies  might  have  been  indefinitely  adjourned.  A 
false  theory  of  commerce,  then  universally  accepted, 
had  involved  both  the  mother  country  and  her  colonies 
in  a  web  of  restrictions  which  greatly  retarded  their 
development,  and  had  provided  a  perpetual  subject  of 
irritation  and  dissension.  The  Custom-house  and 
revenue  officers,  unlike  other  officials  in  America,  were 
not  paid  by  the  local  legislatures.  They  were  appointed 
directly  by  the  Crown  or  by  the  governors,  and  in 
America  as  in  England  cases  of  revenue  fraud  might  by 
means  of  the  Admiralty  Court  be  tried  without  the 

1  Kalm.    Pinkerton's  Voyages,  xiii.  700. 


CH.  xi.  SMUGGLING.  47 

intervention  of  a  jury.  Smuggling  was  very  lucrative, 
and  therefore  very  popular,  and  any  attempt  to  interfere 
with  it  was  greatly  resented. 

The  attention  of  the  British  Government  was  ur- 
gently called  to  it  during  the  war.  At  a  time  when 
Great  Britain  was  straining  every  nerve  to  conquer 
Canada  from  the  French,  when  the  security  of  British 
America  was  one  of  the  first  objects-  of  English  policy, 
and  when  large  sums  were  remitted  from  England  to  pay 
the  colonies  for  fighting  in  their  own  cause,  it  was  found 
that  the  French  fleets,  the  French  garrisons,  and  the 
French  West  India  islands,  were  systematically  supplied 
with  large  quantities  of  provisions  by  the  New  England 
colonies.  The  trade  was  carried  on  partly  by  ordinary 
smuggling  and  partly  under  the  cover  of  flags  of  truce, 
granted  ostensibly  for  the  exchange  of  prisoners,  and 
large  numbers  of  persons,  some  of  them,  it  is  said,  high  in 
official  life,  connived  and  participated  in  it.  Pitt,  who 
still  directed  affairs,  wrote  with  great  indignation  that 
this  trade  must  at  all  hazards  be  suppressed ;  but  the 
whole  mercantile  community  of  the  New  England  sea- 
ports appears  to  have  favoured  or  partaken  in  it,  and 
great  difficulties  were  found  in  putting  the  law  into 
execution.  The  smuggling  was  even  defended  with  a 
wonderful  cynicism  on  the  ground  that  it  was  good 
policy  to  make  as  much  money  as  possible  out  of  the 
enemy.  Some  papers  seized  in  the  possession  of  French- 
men at  New  York  showed  clearly  how  extensive  and 
well-organised  was  the  plan  of  the  French  for  obtaining 
their  supplies  from  New  England.  Amherst  wrote  to 
Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  Connecticut  to  lay  an 
embargo  on  all  but  transports  engaged  in  Government 
employ,  and  this  measure  was  actually  taken,  but  it 
was  removed  in  little  more  than  a  month.1  In  order  to 

1  Hildreth.  ii.  498.     Macpherson's  Annals  of  Commerce,  iii.  330. 
Arnold's  Hist,  of  EJwde  Island,  ii.  227,  235,  236. 


48  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.        CH.  n. 

detect  if  possible  the  smuggled  goods,  the  Custom- 
house officers  in  1761  applied  to  the  Superior  Court  in 
Massachusetts  to  grant  them  'writs  of  assistance/ 
These  writs,  which  were  frequently  employed  in  Eng- 
land, and  occasionally  in  the  colonies,  bore  a  great 
resemblance  to  the  general  warrants  which  soon  after 
became  so  obnoxious  in  England.  They  were  general 
writs  authorising  Custom-house  officers  to  search  any 
house  they  pleased  for  smuggled  goods,  and  they  were 
said  to  have  been  sometimes  used  for  purposes  of 
private  annoyance.  They  appear,  however,  to  have  been 
perfectly  legal,  and  if  their  employment  was  ever  justifi- 
able, it  was  in  an  attempt  to  put  down  a  smuggling 
trade  with  the  enemy  in  time  of  war.  The  issue  of  the 
warrants  was  resisted,  though  unsuccessfully,  by  the 
Boston  merchants,  and  a  young  lawyer  of  some  talent 
named  James  Otis,  whose  father  had  just  been  dis- 
appointed in  his  hopes  of  obtaining  a  seat  upon  the 
bench,  signalised  himself  by  an  impassioned  attack  on 
the  whole  commercial  code  and  on  the  alleged  oppres- 
sion of  Parliament.  His  speech  excited  great  enthu- 
siasm in  the  colonies,  and  was  afterwards  regarded  by 
John  Adams  and  some  others  as  the  first  step  towards 
the  Revolution.1 

There  were  indeed  already  on  all  sides  symptoms 
by  which  a  careful  observer  might  have  foreseen  that 
dangers  were  approaching.  The  country  was  full  of  rest- 
less military  adventurers  called  into  prominence  by  the 
war.  The  rapid  rise  of  an  ambitious  legal  profession 
and  the  great  development  of  the  Press  made  it  certain 

1  Otis  tells  a  story  of  a  man  Otis,  p.  67.    A  very  full  abstract 

who  possessed  one  of  these  writs,  of  the  great  speech  of  Otis  against 

being  sunvmoned  by  a  judge  for  the  writs  of  assistance  will  be 

Sabbath-bieaking  and  swearing,  found  in  this  work — a  remarkable 

and  avenging  himself  by  search-  book  from  which  I  have  derived 

ing  the  house  of  the  judge  from  much  assistance.  See,  too,  Adams' 

top  to  bottom. — Tudor's  Life  of  Works,  i.  57,  58,  ii.  524,  525. 


CH.  xi  GROWING   DISSENSIONS.  49 

that  there  would  be  abundant  mouthpieces  of  discontent, 
and  there  was  so  much  in  the  legal  relations  of  England 
to  her  colonies  that  was  anomalous,  unsettled,  or  unde- 
fined, that  causes  of  quarrel  were  sure  to  arise.  The 
revenue  laws  were  habitually  violated.  There  was,  in 
the  Northern  colonies  at  least,  an  extreme  impatience 
of  every  form  of  control,  and  the  Executive  was  almost 
powerless.  The  Government  would  gladly  have  secured 
for  the  judges  in  Massachusetts  a  permanent  provision, 
which  would  place  them  in  some  degree  beyond  the 
control  of  the  Assembly,  but  it  found  it  impossible  to 
carry  it.  The  Assemblies  of  North  Carolina  and  New 
York  would  gladly  have  secured  for  their  judges  a 
tenure  of  office  during  good  behaviour,  as  in  England, 
instead  of  at  the  King's  pleasure,  but  the  Home  Govern- 
ment, fearing  that  this  would  still  farther  weaken  the 
Executive,  gave  orders  that  no  such  measure  should 
receive  the  assent  of  the  governors,  and  in  New  York 
the  Assembly  having  refused  on  any  other  condition  to 
vote  the  salaries  of  the  judges,  they  were  paid  out  of 
the  royal  quit  rents.1 

There  were  frequent  quarrels  between  the  governors 
and  the  Assemblies,  and  much  violent  language  was 
employed.  In  1762,  on  the  arrival  of  some  French  ships 
off  Newfoundland,  the  inhabitants  of  Massachusetts, 
who  were  largely  employed  in  the  fishery,  petitioned  the 
governor  that  a  ship  and  sloop  belonging  to  the  province 
should  be  fitted  out  to  protect  their  fishing  boats.  The 
governor  and  council  complied  with  their  request,  and 
in  order  that  the  sloop  should  obtain  rapidly  its  full 
complement  of  men  he  offered  a  bounty  for  enlistment. 
The  whole  expense  of  the  bounty  did  not  exceed  400?. 
The  proceeding  might  be  justified  by  many  precedents, 
and  it  certainly  wore  no  appearance  of  tyranny ;  but 


1  Bancroft,  i.  502,  503.     Grahame,  iv.  87, 


50     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  M. 

Otis,  who  had  been  made  one  of  the  representatives  of 
Boston  as  a  reward  for  his  incendiary  speech  about  the 
writs  of  assistance,  saw  an  opportunity  of  gaining  fresh 
laurels.  He  induced  the  House  to  vote  a  remonstrance 
to  the  governor,  declaring  that  he  had  invaded  'their 
most  darling  privilege,  the  right  of  originating  taxes/ 
and  that  '  it  would  be  of  little  consequence  to  the  people 
whether  they  were  subject  to  George  the  King  of  Great 
Britain  or  Lewis  the  French  king  if  both  were  arbitrary, 
as  both  would  be  if  both  could  levy  taxes  without 
Parliament.'  It  was  with  some  difficulty  that  the 
governor  prevailed  on  the  House  to  expunge  the  passage 
in  which  the  King's  name  was  so  disloyally  intro- 
duced.1 

The  immense  advantages  which  the  colonists  ob- 
tained by  the  Peace  of  Paris  had  no  doubt  produced  even 
in  the  New  England  colonies  an  outburst  of  loyal  grati- 
tude, but  the  prospect  was  again  speedily  overclouded. 
The  direction  of  colonial  affairs  passed  into  the  hands  of 
George  Grenville,  and  that  unhappy  course  of  policy  was 
begun  which  in  a  few  years  deprived  England  of  the 
noblest  fruits  of  the  administration  of  Pitt. 

Up  to  this  time  the  North  American  colonies  had  in 
time  of  peace  been  in  general  almost  outside  the  cogni- 
sance of  the  Government.  As  their  affairs  had  no  in- 
fluence on  party  politics  Parliament  took  no  interest  in 
them,  and  Newcastle,  during  his  long  administration, 
had  left  them  in  almost  every  respect  absolutely  to  them- 
selves. It  was  afterwards  said  by  a  Treasury  official, 
who  was  intimately  acquainted  with  the  management  of 
affairs,  that  *  Grenville  lost  America  because  he  read  the 
American  despatches,  which  none  of  his  predecessors 
had  done.'  The  ignorance  and  neglect  of  all  colonial 
matters  can  indeed  hardly  be  exaggerated,  and  it  ia 


1  Hutchinson,  pp.  97,  98.    Tudor's  Life  of  Otis,  pp.  118-122. 


CH.  xi.  A  NEW  SYSTEM  REQUIRED.  51 

stated  by  a  very  considerable  American  authority,  that 
letters  had  repeatedly  arrived  from  the  Secretary  of  State 
who  was  officially  entrusted  with  the  administration  of 
the  colonies,  addressed  '  to  the  Governor  of  the  Island  of 
New  England.' l  America  owed  much  to  this  ignorance 
and  to  this  neglect ;  and  England  was  so  rich,  and  the 
colonies  were  long  looked  upon  as  so  poor,  that  there 
was  no  disposition  to  seek  anything  more  from  America 
than  was  derived  from  a  partial  monopoly  of  her  trade. 
But  the  position  of  England,  as  well  as  of  America,  was 
now  wholly  changed.  Her  empire  had  been  raised  by 
Pitt  to  an  unprecedented  height  of  greatness,  but  she 
was  reeling  under  a  national  debt  of  nearly  140  millions. 
Taxation  was  greatly  increased.  Poverty  and  distress 
were  very  general,  and  it  had  become  necessary  to  intro- 
duce a  spirit  of  economy  into  all  parts  of  the  adminis- 
tration, to  foster  every  form  of  revenue,  and  if  possible, 
to  diffuse  over  the  gigantic  empire  a  military  burden 
which  was  too  great  for  one  small  island.  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that  in  the  ministry  of  Bute,  Charles 
Townshend  and  his  colleagues  had  already  contemplated 
a  change  in  the  colonial  system,  that  they  desired  to  re- 
duce the  colonial  governments  to  a  more  uniform  system, 
to  plant  an  army  in  America,  and  to  support  it  by 
colonial  taxes  levied  by  the  British  Parliament,  and  that 
it  was  only  the  briefness  of  their  tenure  of  office  that 
prevented  their  scheme  from  coming  to  maturity.2  When 
Grenville  succeeded  to  power  on  the  fall  of  Bute,  he 
took  up  the  design,  and  his  thorough  knowledge  of  all 
the  details  of  office,  his  impatience  of  any  kind  of  neglect, 


1  Otis,  Bights  of  the  British  Bedford  Correspondence,  iii.  210. 
Colonies  asserted  (3rd  ed.  1766),  Walpole's  George  III.  iii.  32.  Mr. 
p.  37.  Bancroft  has  collected  with  great 

2  See    Knox's    Extra-official  industry  all  the  extant  evidence 
Papers,  ii.  29.    Almon's    Bio-  of  this  plan. 

graphical  Anecdotes,  ii.  81-83. 


52     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

abuse,  and  illegality,  as  well  as  his  complete  want  of 
that  political  tact  which  teaches  statesmen  how  far  they 
may  safely  press  their  views,  foreshadowed  a  great  change 
in  colonial  affairs.  He  resolved  to  enforce  strictly  the 
trade  laws,  to  establish  permanently  in  America  a  por- 
tion of  the  British  army,  and  to  raise  by  parliamentary 
taxation  of  America  at  least  a  part  of  the  money  which 
was  necessary  for  its  support. 

These  three  measures  produced  the  American  Revo- 
lution, and  they  are  well  worthy  of  a  careful  and  dispas- 
sionate examination.  The  enormous  extent  of  American 
smuggling  had  been  brought  into  clear  relief  during  the 
war,  when  it  had  assumed  a  very  considerable  military 
importance,  and  as  early  as  1762  there  were  loud  com- 
plaints in  Parliament  of  the  administration  of  the  Cus- 
tom-house patronage.  Grenville  found  on  examination 
that  the  whole  revenue  derived  by  England  from  the 
custom-houses  in  America  amounted  to  between  1,0002. 
and  2,OOOL  a  year;  that  for  the  purpose  of  collecting 
this  revenue  the  English  Exchequer  paid  annually  be- 
tween 7,OOOLand8,OOOZ.,  and  that  the  chief  Custom-house 
officers  appointed  by  the  Crown  had  treated  their  offices 
as  sinecures,  and  by  leave  of  the  Treasury  resided  ha- 
bitually in  England.1  Great  portions  of  the  trade  laws 
had  been  systematically  violated.  Thus,  for  example,  the 
colonists  were  allowed  by  law  to  import  no  tea  except 
from  the  mother  country,  and  it  was  computed  that  of 
a  million  and  a  half  pounds  of  tea  which  they  annually 
consumed,  not  more  than  a  tenth  part  came  from  Eng- 
land.2 This  neglect  Grenville  resolved  to  terminate. 
The  Commissioners  of  Customs  were  ordered  at  once  to 


1  Grenville  Papers,  ii.  114.  fruit,  sugar  and  molasses,  con- 

*  Bancroft,  ii.  178.     See,  too,  sumed    in     the    colonies,    were 

Massachusettensis,  Letter  iii.  Ac-  smuggled.' — Sabine's   American 

cording  to  Sabine,  '  Nine-tenths  Loyalists,  i.  12. 

probably  of  all  the  tea,  wine  and 


CH.  xi.  THE  WEST  INDIA  TRADE.  53 

their  posts.  Several  new  revenue  officers  were  appointed 
with  more  rigid  rules  for  the  discharge  of  their  duties. 
The  Board  of  Trade  issued  a  circular  to  the  colonies  re- 
presenting that  the  revenue  had  not  kept  pace  with  the 
increasing  commerce,  and  did  not  yield  more  than  one- 
quarter  of  the  cost  of  collection,  and  requiring  that  illicit 
commerce  should  be  suppressed,  and  that  proper  support 
should  be  given  to  the  Custom-house  officials.  English 
ships  of  war  were  at  the  same  time  stationed  off  the 
American  coast  for  the  purpose  of  intercepting  smug- 
glers.1 

In  1764  new  measures  of  great  severity  were  taken. 
The  trade  with  the  French  West  India  islands  and  with 
the  Spanish  settlements,  for  molasses  and  sugar,  had 
been  one  of  the  most  lucrative  branches  of  New  England 
commerce.  New  England  found  in  the  French  islands 
a  market  for  her  timber,  and  she  obtained  in  return  an 
abundant  supply  of  the  molasses  required  for  her  distil- 
leries. The  French  West  India  islands  were  nearer  than 
those  of  England.  They  were  in  extreme  need  of  the 
timber  of  which  New  England  furnished  an  inexhaustible 
supply,  and  they  were  in  no  less  need  of  a  market  for 
their  molasses,  which  had  been  excluded  from  France  as 
interfering  with  French  brandies,  and  of  which  enormous 
quantities  were  bought  by  the  New  England  colonies. 
In  1763,  14,500  hogsheads  of  molasses  were  imported 
into  New  England  from  the  French  and  Spanish  settle- 
ments ;  it  was  largely  paid  for  by  timber  which  would 
otherwise  have  rotted  uselessly  on  the  ground,  and  the 
possibility  of  selling  this  timber  at  a  profit  gave  a  great 
impulse  to  the  necessary  work  of  clearing  land  in  New 
England.  No  trade  could  have  been  more  clearly  bene- 
ficial to  both  parties,  and  the  New  Englanders  main- 
tained that  it  was  the  foundation  of  their  whole  system 


Arnold's  Hist,  of  Rhode  Island,  ii.  248. 


54  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.   CH.  XI. 

of  commerce.  The  distilleries  of  Boston,  and  of  other 
parts  of  New  England,  had  acquired  a  great  magnitude. 
Rum  was  sent  in  large  quantities  to  the  Newfoundland 
fisheries  and  to  the  Indians,  and  it  is  a  circumstance  of 
peculiar  and  melancholy  interest  that  it  was  the  main 
article  which  the  Americans  sent  to  Africa  in  exchange 
for  negro  slaves.  In  the  trade  with  the  Spanish  settle- 
ments the  colonists  obtained  the  greater  part  of  the  gold 
and  silver  with  which  they  purchased  English  commo- 
dities, and  this  fact  was  the  more  important  because  an 
English  Act  of  Parliament  had  recently  restrained  the 
colonists  from  issuing  paper  money.1 

In  the  interest  of  the  English  sugar  colonies,  which 
desired  to  obtain  a  monopoly  for  their  molasses  and  their 
sugar,  and  which  at  the  same  time  were  quite  incapable 
of  furnishing  a  sufficient  market  for  the  superfluous 
articles  of  American  commerce,  a  law  had  been  passed 
in  1733  which  imposed  upon  molasses  a  prohibitory  duty 
of  sixpence  a  gallon  and  on  sugar  a  duty  of  five  shillings 
per  cwt.  if  they  were  imported  into  any  of  the  British 
plantations  from  any  foreign  colonies.  No  portion  of 
the  commercial  code  was  so  deeply  resented  in  America, 
and  its  effects  would  have  been  ruinous,  had  not  the  law 
been  systematically  eluded  with  the  connivance  of  the 
revenue  officers,  and  had  not  smuggling  almost  assumed 
the  dimensions  and  the  character  of  a  branch  of  regular 
commerce.  After  several  renewals  the  Act  expired  in 
1763,  and  the  colonies  urgently  petitioned  that  it  should 
not  be  renewed. 

Bernard,  the  Governor,  and  Hutchinson,  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor  of  Massachusetts,  strongly  condemned 
the  policy  of  the  Act,  and  dwelt  upon  the  impossibility 
of  enforcing  it.  Grenville,  however,  refused  to  relin- 


1  Macpherson's     Annals      of      Bancroft.   Grahame.    Letters  of 
Commerce,    iii.    171-177,     192.       Governor  Bernard. 


2H.  XI. 


GRENVILLE'S  COMMERCIAL  POLICY.  55 


quish  what  might  be  made  a  source  of  revenue,  and  the 
old  law  was  renewed  with  several  important  modifica- 
tions. The  duty  on  molasses  was  reduced  by  one-half, 
but  new  duties  were  imposed  on  coffee,  pimento,  French 
and  East  India  goods,  white  sugar  and  indigo  from 
foreign  colonies,  Spanish  and  Portuguese  wine,  and 
wine  from  Madeira  and  the  Azores,  and  the  most  strin- 
gent measures  were  taken  to  enforce  the  law.  Bonds 
were  exacted  from  every  merchant  who  exported  lumber 
or  iron;  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Courts  of  Admiralty, 
which  tried  smuggling  cases  without  a  jury,  was 
strengthened  and  enlarged,  and  all  the  officers  of  ships 
of  war  stationed  on  the  coasts  of  America  were  made 
to  take  the  Custom-house  oaths  and  act  as  revenue 
officers.  In  addition,  therefore,  to  the  old  race  of  ex- 
perienced but  conniving  revenue  officers,  the  repression 
of  smuggling  became  the  business  of  a  multitude  of 
rough  and  zealous  sailors,  who  entered  into  the  work 
with  real  keenness,  with  no  respect  of  persons,  and 
sometimes  with  not  a  little  unnecessary  or  excessive 
violence.  The  measure  was  one  of  the  most  serious 
blows  that  could  be  administered  to  the  somewhat  wan- 
ing prosperity  of  Boston,  and  it  was  the  more  obnoxious 
on  account  of  its  preamble,  which  announced  as  a  reason 
for  imposing  additional  duties  that  'it  is  just  and 
necessary  that  a  revenue  be  raised  in  your  Majesty's 
dominions  in  America  for  defraying  the  expenses  of  de- 
fending, protecting,  and  securing  the  same.'  In  order 
to  diminish  the  severity  of  these  restrictions,  bounties 
were  in  the  same  year  given  to  the  cultivation  of 
hemp  and  flax  in  the  colonies.  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia  were  allowed  to  export  the  rice  which  was  their 
chief  product  to  the  French  West  India  islands ;  and 
the  whale  fishery,  which  was  one  of  the  most  profit- 
able industries  of  New  England,  was  relieved  of  a 
duty  which  had  hitherto  alone  prevented  it  from  com- 
G 


5C  ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.      en.  xi. 

pletely  superseding  or  eclipsing  the  whale  fishery  of 
England.1 

Judging  by  the  mere  letter  of  the  law,  the  com- 
mercial policy  of  Grenville  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 
aggravated  the  severity  of  the  commercial  code,  for  the 
new  restrictions  that  were  imposed  were  balanced  by 
the  new  indulgences  that  were  conferred.  In  truth, 
however,  the  severe  enforcement  of  rules  which  had  been 
allowed  to  become  nearly  obsolete  was  a  most  serious 
injury  to  the  prosperity  of  New  England.  A  trade 
which  was  in  the  highest  degree  natural  and  beneficial, 
and  which  had  long  been  pursued  with  scarcely  any 
hindrance,  was  impeded,  and  the  avowed  object  of 
raising  by  imperial  authority  a  revenue  to  defray  the 
expense  of  defending  the  colonies,  created  a  constitu- 
tional question  of  the  gravest  kind. 

It  was  closely  connected  with  the  intention  to  place 
rather  more  than  10,000  soldiers  permanently  in 
America.  This  scheme  was  also  much  objected  to. 
The  colonists  retained  in  its  full  force  the  dread  of  a 
standing  army,  which  had  been  so  powerful  in  England 
at  the  time  of  the  Revolution.  In  time  of  war,  they 
said,  they  had  always  shown  themselves  willing  to  raise 
troops  at  the  requisition  of  the  governor.  Parliament, 
in  the  last  war,  had  repeatedly  acknowledged  the  alacrity 
they  had  displayed,  and  they  asked  why  the  country 
might  not,  as  heretofore,  be  protected  in  time  of  peace 
by  its  own  militias,  which  were  organised  and  paid 
without  any  assistance  from  the  mother  country.  It 
was  urged  that  the  expulsion  of  the  French  from  Canada 
had  greatly  diminished  its  foreign  dangers,  and  it  was 
asked  whether  the  army  was  really  intended  to  guard 
against  foreigners. 


1  4   Geo.  III.   15,  26,  27,  29.      iii.  395-401.     Grahame,  iv.  169- 
Macpherson's  Hist,  of  Commerce,      176.  Tudor's  Life  of  Otis,  p.  105. 


en.  xi. 


1763.  57 


It  is  possible,  and  indeed  very  probable,  that  a  de- 
sire to  strengthen  the  feeble  Executive,  and  to  prevent 
the  systematic  violation  of  the  revenue  laws,  was  a 
motive  with  those  who  recommended  the  establishment 
of  an  army  in  America ;  but  the  primary  object  was, 
no  doubt,  the  defence  of  the  colonies  and  the  mainte- 
nance of  imperial  interests.  In  the  earlier  stages  of 
colonial  history,  little  had  been  done  in  the  way  of 
protection,  because  these  poor  and  scattered  communi- 
ties appeared  of  little  value  either  to  England  or  to  her 
enemies.  British  America,  however,  was  now  a  great 
and  prosperous  country.  When  we  remember  its  vast 
extent,  its  great  wealth,  and  its  distance  from  the 
mother  country ;  when  we  remember  also  that  a  great 
part  of  it  had  been  but  just  annexed  to  the  Crown,  and 
that  its  most  prosperous  provinces  were  fringed  by 
tribes  of  wild  Indians,  the  permanent  maintenance  in  it 
of  a  small  army  appears  evidently  expedient.  The 
dangers  from  Indians  in  the  north  had  been  no  doubt 
diminished  by  the  conquest  of  Canada,  but  a  terrible 
lesson  had  very  recently  shown  how  formidable  Indian 
warfare  might  still  become.  In  June  1763,  a  confedera- 
tion including  several  Indian  tribes  had  suddenly  and 
unexpectedly  swept  over  the  whole  western  frontier  of 
Pennsylvania  and  Virginia,  had  murdered  almost  all 
the  English  settlers  who  were  scattered  beyond  the 
mountains,  had  surprised  and  captured  every  British 
fort  between  the  Ohio  and  Lake  Erie,  and  had  closely 
blockaded  Fort  Detroit  and  Pittsburg.  In  no  previous 
war  had  the  Indians  shown  such  skill,  tenacity,  and 
concert ;  and  had  there  not  been  British  troops  in  the 
country,  the  whole  of  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  and  Mary- 
land would  probably  have  been  overrun.  In  spite  of 
every  effort,  a  long  line  of  country  twenty  miles  in 
breadth  was  completely  desolated,  and  presented  one 
hideous  scene  of  plunder,  massacre,  and  torture.  It 


58    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

was  only  after  much  desperate  fighting,  after  some  losses, 
and  several  reverses,  that  the  troops  of  Amherst  suc- 
ceeded in  repelling  the  invaders  and  securing  the  three 
great  fortresses  of  Niagara,  Detroit,  and  Pittsburg. 

The  war  lasted  for  fourteen  months  ;  but  during  the 
first  six  months,  when  the  danger  was  at  its  height,  the 
hard  fighting  appears  to  have  been  mainly  done  by 
English  troops,  though  a  considerable  body  of  the  militia 
of  the  Southern  colonies  were  in  the  field.  At  last 
Amherst  called  upon  the  New  England  colonies  to  assist 
their  brethren,  but  his  request  was  almost  disregarded. 
Massachusetts,  being  beyond  the  zone  of  immediate 
danger,  and  fatigued  with  the  burden  of  the  late  war, 
would  give  no  help  ;  and  Connecticut  with  great  reluc- 
tance sent  250  men.  After  a  war  of  extreme  horror, 
peace  was  signed  in  September  1764.  In  a  large 
degree  by  the  efforts  of  English  soldiers,  the  Indian 
territory  was  again  rolled  back,  and  one  more  great 
service  was  rendered  by  England  to  her  colonies.1 

This  event  was  surely  a  sufficient  justification  of  the 
policy  of  establishing  a  small  army  in  the  colonies. 
But  it  was  not  alone  against  the  Indians  that  it  was 
required.  It  was  a  general  belief  in  America  that  if 
another  war  broke  out,  France  would  endeavour  to 
regain  Canada,  and  that  she  might  be  aided  by  an 
insurrection  of  her  former  subjects.2  It  was  almost 
certain  that  the  next  French  war  would  extend  to  the 
West  Indies,  and  in  that  case  America  would  be  a  post 
of  vital  importance  both  for  defence  and  for  attack.  It 
was  plainly  unwise  that  such  a  position  should  be  left 
wholly  denuded  of  troops,  and  dependent  for  its  protec- 
tion upon  the  precarious  favour  of  the  winds. 

These  considerations  appear  to  me  to  justify  fully 

1  TrumbulTs    Hist,     of     the          2  Otis,  Rights  of  the  Colonies 
United  States,  pp.  455-467.    Hil-      p.  97. 
dreth,  Grahame,  Hutchinson. 


CH.  xi.         PROPOSED  COLONIAL  ARMY.  59 

the  policy  of  the  ministers  in  desiring  to  place  a  small 
army  permanently  in  the  colonies.  We  must  next 
inquire  whether  it  was  unreasonable  to  expect  the  colo- 
nists to  support  it.  The  position  of  England  after  the 
Peace  of  Paris  was  wholly  different  from  her  position 
in  the  preceding  century.  She  was  no  longer  a  small, 
compact,  and  essentially  European  country,  with  a  few 
outlying  possessions  of  comparatively  little  value.  By 
the  conquests  of  Olive  in  Hindostan,  by  the  great  de- 
velopment of  the  colonies  of  British  America,  by  the 
acquisition  of  Florida  and  Canada  and  of  the  important 
islands  which  had  recently  been  annexed,  she  had 
become  the  centre  of  an  empire  unrivalled  since  that  of 
Charles  V.  and  pregnant  with  the  possibilities  of  almost 
unbounded  progress.  It  devolved  upon  the  English 
statesmen  who  obtained  power  after  the  Peace  of  Paris 
to  legislate  for  these  new  conditions  of  national  great- 
ness, and  to  secure,  as  far  as  human  sagacity  could  do 
so,  the  permanence  of  that  great  Empire  which  had 
been  built  up  by  so  much  genius  and  with  so  much 
blood,  and  which  might  be  made  the  instrument  of 
such  incalculable  benefits  to  mankind.  The  burden  of 
the  naval  protection  they  proposed  to  leave  exclusively 
with  the  mother  country,  but  the  burden  of  the  military 
protection  they  proposed  to  divide.  They  maintained 
that  it  was  wholly  impossible  that  8,000,000  English- 
men, weighed  down  with  debt  and  with  taxation,  and 
with  a  strong  traditional  hostility  to  standing  armies, 
could  alone  undertake  the  military  protection  of  an 
empire  so  vast;  so  various,  and  in  many  of  its  parts  so 
distant.  Two  subsidiary  armies  had  already  been 
created.  The  East  India  Company  had  its  own  forces 
for  the  defence  of  India,  and  Ireland  supported  a  large 
force  both  for  its  own  defence  and  for  the  general 
service  of  the  Empire.  Townshend  and  Grenville  re- 
Bolved  to  plant  a  third  army  in  the  colonies. 


60     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

The  case  of  Ireland  is  here  worthy  of  special  notice. 
If  North  America  was  the  part  of  the  British  Empire 
where  well-being  was  most  widely  diffused,  Ireland  was 
probably  the  part  where  there  was  most  poverty.  Her 
population  may,  perhaps,  have  exceeded  the  free  popu- 
lation of  British  America  by  about  a  million ;  but  her 
natural  resources  were  infinitely  less.  By  her  exclusion 
from  the  Navigation  Act  she  had  been  shut  out  from  all 
direct  trade  with  the  British  dependencies,  while  her 
most  important  manufactures  had  been  suppressed  by 
law.  The  great  majority  of  her  population  had  been 
reduced  to  extreme  degradation  by  the  penal  code.  She 
was  burdened  by  a  tithe  system  supporting  an  alien 
Church.  Her  social  system  was  disorganised  by  re- 
peated confiscations  and  by  the  emigration  of  her  most 
energetic  classes,  and  she  was  drained  of  her  little  wealth 
by  absenteeism,  by  a  heavy  pension  list,  and  by  an 
exaggerated  establishment  in  Church  and  State,  in 
which  the  chief  offices  were  reserved  for  Englishmen. 
Yet  Ireland  from  Irish  revenues  supported  an  army  of 
12,000  men,  which  was  raised  in  1769  to  15,000. 

I  have  no  wish  to  deny  that  the  Stamp  Act  was  a 
grievance  to  the  Americans,  but  it  is  due  to  the  truth 
of  history  that  the  gross  exaggerations  which  have  been 
repeated  on  the  subject  should  be  dispelled,  and  that 
the  nature  of  the  alleged  tyranny  of  England  should  be 
clearly  defined.  It  cannot  be  too  distinctly  stated  that 
there  is  not  a  fragment  of  evidence  that  any  English 
statesman,  or  any  class  of  the  English  people,  desired 
to  raise  anything  by  .direct  taxation  from  the  colonies 
for  purposes  that  were  purely  English.  They  did  not 
ask  them  to  contribute  anything  to  the  support  of  the 
navy  which  protected  their  coast,  or  anything  to  the 
interest  of  the  English  debt.  At  the  close  of  a  war 
which  had  left  England  overwhelmed  with  additional 
burdens,  in  which  the  whole  resources  of  the  British 


CH.  xi.        PROPOSED  COLONIAL  ARMY.  61 

Empire  had  been  strained  for  the  extension  and  security 
of  the  British  territory  in  America,  by  which  the  Ameri- 
can colonists  had  gained  incomparably  more  than  any 
other  of  the  subjects  of  the  Crown,  the  colonies  were 
asked  to  bear  their  share  in  the  burden  of  the  Empire 
by  contributing  a  third  part — they  would  no  doubt 
ultimately  have  been  asked  to  contribute  the  whole — 
of  what  was  required  for  the  maintenance  of  an  army 
of  10,000  men,  intended  primarily  for  their  own  defence. 
100,OOOL  was  the  highest  estimate  of  what  the  Stamp 
Act  would  annually  produce,  and  it  was  rather  less 
than  a  third  part  of  the  expense  of  the  new  army.  This 
was  what  England  asked  from  the  most  prosperous 
portion  of  her  Empire.  Every  farthing  which  it  was 
intended  to  raise  in  America,  it  was  intended  also  to 
spend  there. 

The  great  grievance  was  of  course  that  the  sum  was 
to  be  raised  by  imperial  taxation,  and  that  it  was  there- 
fore a  departure  from  the  old  system  of  government  in 
the  colonies.  Hitherto  the  distinction  between  external 
and  internal  taxation  had  been  the  leading  principle  of 
colonial  administration.  Parliament  exercised  a  recog- 
nised right  when  it  determined  the  commercial  system 
of  the  colonies  by  the  imposition  of  duties  which  pro- 
duced indeed  some  small  revenue,  but  which  were  not 
intended  for  that  purpose,  but  solely  for  the  purpose  of 
commercial  regulation.  But  taxes  intended  for  the 
purpose  of  revenue  had  only  been  imposed  by  the 
colonial  assemblies.  Twice  already  in  the  eighteenth 
century  the  imposition  of  imperial  taxation  for  military 
purposes  had  been  contemplated.  In  1739  a  body  of 
American  merchants  under  the  leadership  of  Sir  W. 
Keith,  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania,  had  proposed  the 
establishment  of  a  body  of  troops  along  the  western 
frontier  of  the  British  settlements,  and  had  suggested 
a  parliamentary  duty  on  stamped  paper  and  parch- 


62     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xt, 

ments  as  a  means  of  defraying  the  expense  ;  but  Wai- 
pole  had  wisely  declined  to  accede  to  the  proposition. 
In  1754,  when  it  was  necessary  to  make  preparations 
for  the  great  war  with  France,  and  when  the  scheme 
for  uniting  the  colonies  for  military  purposes  had  failed, 
the  Government  proposed  that  the  governors  of  the 
several  provinces  should  meet  together,  and  with  some 
members  of  the  general  councils  should  concert  mea- 
sures for  the  defence  of  the  colonies.  It  was  proposed 
that  the  English  Treasury  should  advance  such  sums  as 
they  deemed  necessary  for  this  purpose,  and  that  it 
should  be  reimbursed  by  a  tax  imposed  on  all  the  colonies 
by  the  Imperial  Parliament.  The  extreme  difficulty  of 
obtaining  any  simultaneous  military  action  of  the 
colonies,  and  the  impossibility  of  inducing  the  colonies 
which  were  remote  from  the  immediate  danger  to  con- 
tribute their  quota  to  the  common  cause,  were  the 
reasons  alleged ;  and  in  order  that  the  grievance  should 
be  as  small  as  possible,  it  was  intended  that  Parliament 
should  only  determine  the  proportion  to  be  paid  by  each 
colony,  leaving  it  to  each  colonial  assembly  to  raise  that 
sum  as  it  pleased.  Franklin,  who  was  consulted  about 
the  scheme,  wrote  some  able  letters  to  Shirley,  the 
Governor  of  Massachusetts,  protesting  against  it,  and 
Pitt  refused  to  adopt  it.1 

The  constitutional  competence  of  Parliament  to  tax 
the  colonies  is  a  question  of  great  difficulty,  upon  which 
the  highest  legal  authorities  have  been  divided,  though 
the  decided  preponderance  of  legal  opinion  has  been  in 
favour  of  the  right.  Parliament  repeatedly  claimed  and 
exercised  a  general  right  of  legislating  for  the  colonies, 

1  See     on     this     negotiation  ii.    56,    57.      The    Controversy 

Franklin's    letters    to     Shirley,  between  Great  Britain  and  net 

with      the      prefatory,    note. —  Colonies    Reviewed   (1769),  pp 

Franklin's    Works,    iii.    56-58.  194-198.    Bancroft,  i.  195-198. 
Thackeray's  Life  of  Chatham, 


TO.  xi.   MIGHT  PARLIAMENT  TAX  THE  COLONIES  ?     63 

and  it  is  not  possible  to  show  by  the  distinct  letter  of 
the  law  that  this  did  not  include  the  right  to  make 
laws  imposing  taxes.  It  was  admitted  by  the  Ameri- 
cans that  it  might  impose  trade  duties  which  produced 
revenue,  though  they  were  not  primarily  intended  for 
that  purpose  ;  and  it  is  certain  that  the  Charter  of 
Pennsylvania,  though  of  that  colony  alone,  expressly 
reserved  to  Parliament  the  right  of  taxation.1  To  an 
accurate  thinker,  indeed,  it  must  appear  evident  that 
every  law  which  in  the  interest  of  English  manufac- 
turers prohibited  the  Americans  from  pursuing  a  form 
of  manufacture,  or  buying  a  particular  class  of  goods 
from  foreigners,  was  in  reality  a  tax.  The  effect  of  the 
monopoly  was  that  the  Americans  paid  more  for  these 
goods  than  if  they  had  produced  them  or  bought  them 
from  foreigners,  and  this  excess  was  a  sum  levied  from 
the  Americans  for  the  benefit  of  England.  If  the  Vir- 
ginian planters  were  obliged  by  restrictive  laws  to  send 
their  tobacco  to  England  alone,  and  if  a  tax  was  im- 
posed on  all  tobacco  in  England  for  the  purpose  of 
revenue,  it  is  clear  that  at  least  a  portion  of  that  tax 
was  really  paid  by  the  producer  in  Virginia.  It  is  also 
not  evident  in  the  nature  of  things  why  the  general  de- 
fence of  the  Empire  should  be  esteemed  less  an  imperial 
concern  than  the  regulation  of  commerce ;  and  why,  if 
Parliament  might  bind  the  colonies  and  raise  money 
for  the  regulation  of  their  commercial  system,  she  might 
not  also  both  determine  and  enforce  their  military  ob- 
ligations. The  general  opinion  of  English  lawyers  ap- 
pears to  have  been  that  the  distinction  between  internal 
and  external  taxation  had  no  basis  in  law  or  in  fact,  and 
that  the  right  of  the  English  Legislature  was  supreme 

1  By  the  Charter  the  Sovereign  prietors  or  chief  governor  or  As- 
engaged  never  to  levy  any  tax  in  sembly,  or  by  Act   of   Parlia- 
Pennsylvania,  '  unless  the  same  ment  in  England.1 
be  with  the  consent  of  the  pro- 


64     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

over  the  colonies,  however  impolitic  it  might  be  to  exer- 
cise it.  In  1724  the  law  officers  of  the  Crown,  one  of 
whom  was  Sir  Philip  Yorke,  had  given  their  opinion 
that  *  a  colony  of  English  subjects  cannot  be  taxed  but 
by  some  representative  body  of  their  own  or  by  the 
Parliament  of  England ; '  and  a  similar  opinion  was 
given  in  1744  by  Murray,  afterwards  Lord  Mansfield. 
Mansfield  was  subsequently  one  of  the  strongest  ad- 
vocates of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  the  most  vehement  op- 
ponent of  its  repeal.  In  a  few  years  the  colonial 
lawyers  appear  to  have  agreed  substantially  with  those 
of  England,  for  they  maintained  that,  in  order  to  es- 
tablish by  argument  the  sole  right  of  the  Assemblies  to 
tax  the  colonies,  it  was  necessary  to  deny  that  the 
Imperial  Parliament  had  any  power  of  legislating  for 
them. 

It  was  admitted  that  it  was  a  new  thing  to  impose 
internal  taxation  on  the  colonies.  The  Post  Office 
revenue,  which  ovas  often  alleged  as  an  example',  might 
be  regarded  merely  as  a  payment  exacted  for  the  per- 
formance of  a  service  of  general  utility,  and  the  pro- 
priety of  imposing  this  new  burden  on  the  colonies  was 
defended  on  the  ground  that  the  circumstances  both  of 
the  colonies  and  of  England  had  radically  changed.1  The  • 
idea,  however,  of  supporting  an  American  army  by  im- 
perial taxation  of  America  was,  as  we  have  seen,  not 
new,  and  some  of  the  best  judges  of  American  affairs 
appeared  to  regard  it  as  feasible.  When  the  question 
of  establishing  a  general  fund  during  the  war  was  under 
discussion  in  1754  and  1755,  Governor  Shirley  gave  his 
opinion '  that  the  several  Assemblies  within  the  colonies 
will  not  agree  among  themselves  upon  such  a  fund; 
that  consequently  it  must  be  done  in  England,  and  that 

1  As     Dr.     Johnson    wittily      into  the  plough :  we  wait  till  it 
though    somewhat     offensively       is  an  ox.' 
wrote :   '  We  do  not  put  a  calf 


CH.  xi.  DIFFICULTIES    OF   RAISING    AN   ARMY,  65 

the  only  effectual  way  of  doing  it  there  will  be  by  an 
Act  of  Parliament,  in  which  I  have  great  reason  to 
think  the  people  will  readily  acquiesce,  and  that  the 
success  of  any  other  method  will  be  doubtful.' l 

This  passage  implies  what  was  probably  the  strong- 
est argument  weighing  upon  the  ministers.  It  was  the 
absolute  impossibility  of  inducing  America  to  support 
her  own  army  unless  the  English  Parliament  inter- 
vened. There  was  no  central  colonial  government. 
There  was  no  body,  like  the  Irish  Parliament,  compe- 
tent to  tax  the  several  provinces.  In  order  to  raise  the 
money  for  the  support  of  an  American  army  with  the 
assent  of  the  colonies,  it  was  necessary  to  have  the 
assent  of  no  less  than  seventeen  colonial  assemblies. 
The  hopelessness  of  attempting  to  fulfil  this  condition 
was  very  manifest.  If  in  the  agonies  of  a  great  war  it 
had  been  found  impossible  to  induce  the  colonies  to  act 
together;  if  the  Southern  colonies  long  refused  to  assist 
the  Northern  ones  in  their  struggle  against  France  be- 
cause they  were  far  from  the  danger;  if  South  Carolina, 
when  reluctantly  raising  troops  for  the  war,  stipulated 
that  they  should  act  only  within  their  own  province ; 
if  New  England  would  give  little  or  no  assistance  while 
the  Indians  were  carrying  desolation  over  Virginia  and 
Pennsylvania ;  what  chance  was  there  that  all  these 
colonies  would  agree  in  time  of  peace  to  impose  uniform 
and  proportionate  taxation  upon  themselves  for  the  sup- 
port of  an  English  army  ? 2  It  seemed  evident,  as  a 


1  The     Controversy     between  in  a  speech  to  the  Assembly  of 
Great  Britain  and  her  Colonies,  New  Jersey  in  1775,  said  :  '  The 
pp.  196,  197.  necessity  of  some  supreme  judge 

2  See  a  very  able  statement  of  [to  determine  the  quota  of  each 
the  dissension  among  the  colo-  province  to  the  general  expense] 
nies  in  The  Controversy  between  is  evident  from  the  very  nature 
Great  Britain  and  her  Colonies,  of  the  case,  as  otherwise  some  of 
pp.  93-97.     Governor  Franklin  the  colonies  might  not  contribute 
(the  son  of  Benjamin  Franklin),  their  due  proportion.    During  the 


66     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

matter  of  practical  statesmanship,  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible, without  the  assistance  of  Parliament,  to  sup- 
port an  American  army  by  American  taxation,  unless 
the  provinces  could  be  induced  to  confide  the  power  of 
taxation  to  a  single  colonial  assembly,  and  unless  Eng- 
land could  induce  that  assembly,  by  the  promise  of 
commercial  relaxations,  to  vote  a  subsidy.  To  both 
parts  of  this  scheme  the  difficulties  were  enormous,  and 
probably  insuperable.  Extreme  jealousy  of  England, 
of  the  Executive,  and  of  each  other,  animated  the  colo- 
nies, while  a  spirit  of  intense  commercial  monopoly  was 
dominant  in  England.  Under  these  conditions  the 
problem  might  well  have  appeared  a  hopeless  one. 

It  would  have  been  far  wiser,  under  such  circum- 
stances, to  have  abandoned  the  project  of  making  the 
Americans  pay  for  their  army,  and  to  have  thrown  the 
burden  on  the  mother  country.  Heavily  as  the  English 
were  at  this  time  taxed,  grievous  as  was  the  discontent 
that  was  manifested  among  the  people,  the  support 
of  a  small  American  army  would  not  have  been  over- 
whelming, while  a  conflict  with  the  colonists  on  the 
question  could  lead  to  no  issue  that  was  not  disastrous. 
There  was  indeed  one  method  which  might  possibly 
have  been  successful.  Fresh  duties  imposed  on  Ame- 
rican goods  might  have  raised  the  required  sum  in  a 

last  war  I  well  remember  it  was  ern  colonies  so  far  as  to  include 

ardently  wished  by  some  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  should  come 

colonies  that  others,  who  were  into  his  Majesty's  requisition  on 

thought  to  be  delinquent,  might  the  occasion.    But  as  none   of 

be   compelled  by  Act  of  Parlia-  the  Assemblies  of  the  New  Eng- 

ment  to  bear  an  equal  share  of  land  Governments  thought  them- 

the  public  burdens.  .  .  .   When  selves  nearly  concerned,  nothing 

the  Assembly  in  1764  was  called  was  granted  by  them,  and  the 

upon  to  make  provision  for  rais-  whole  burden  of  the  expedition 

ing  some  troops  on  account  of  then    carried  on  fell  on   Great 

the   Indian  war,   they  declined  Britain  and  three  or  four  of  the 

doing  it   for  some  time  but  on  middle  colonies.' — See  Tucker1* 

condition  a  majority  of  the  east-  Letter  to  Burke,  pp.  49,  50. 


en.  xi.  DIFFICULTIES    OF   RAISING   AN   ARMY.  67 

manner  mischievous  and  wasteful  indeed  both  to  Eng- 
land and  the  colonies,  but  not  wholly  inconsistent  with 
the  usual  tenor  of  their  government,  and  in  the  opinion 
of  Franklin  such  a  measure  might  have  been  acquiesced 
in.  In  the  beginning  of  1764  that  very  shrewd  ob- 
server wrote  a  letter  urging  the  necessity  of  converting 
the  Government  of  Pennsylvania  from  a  proprietary 
into  a  royal  one,  in  which  there  occurs  a  passage  which 
is  singularly  curious  when  read  in  the  light  of  the 
author's  subsequent  career.  *  That  we  shall  have  a 
standing  army  to  maintain/  he  says,  '  is  another  bug- 
bear raised  to  terrify  us  from  endeavouring  to  obtain  a 
king's  government.  It  is  very  possible  that  the  Crown 
may  think  it  necessary  to  keep  troops  in  America  hence- 
forward, to  maintain  its  conquests  and  defend  the  colo- 
nies, and  that  the  Parliament  may  establish  some  revenue 
arising  out  of  the  American  trade  to  be  applied  towards 
supporting  these  troops.  It  is  possible  too  that  we  may, 
after  a  few  years'  experience,  be  generally  very  well 
satisfied  with  that  measure,  from  the  steady  protection 
it  will  afford  us  against  foreign  enemies  and  the  security 
of  internal  peace  among  ourselves  without  the  expense 
and  trouble  of  a  militia.' l 

Grenville  adopted  another  course,  but  he  acted  with 
evident  reluctance  and  hesitation.  In  March  1764,  at 
the  same  time  as  the  commercial  measure  I  have  al- 
ready described,  be  brought  forward  and  carried  a  reso- 
lution asserting  that  '  for  further  defraying  the  expense 
of  protecting  the  colonies  it  may  be  proper  to  charge 
certain  stamp  duties  in  the  said  colonies.5  Further 
measures  were  postponed  for  a  year,  in  order  to  ascer- 
tain fully  the  sentiments  of  the  colonies,  and  also  to 
give  them  an  opportunity,  if  they  chose  to  avail  them- 
selves of  it,  either  of  suggesting  some  other  tax  or  of 


1  Franklin's  Works,  iv.  89,  90. 


68     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,   en.  xi. 

preventing  the  action  of  Parliament  by  themselves  rais- 
ing the  sum  which  was  required.1 

At  the  close  of  this  session  the  agents  of  the  dif- 
ferent colonies  went  in  a  body  to  Grenville  to  ask  him 
if  it  was  still  his  intention  to  bring  in  the  threatened 
Bill.  Grenville  replied  positively  in  the  affirmative, 
and  he  defended  his  determination  by  arguments  which 
he  had  already  used  both  in  private  and  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  The  interview  was  described  by  Mauduit, 
the  agent  of  Massachusetts,  in  a  letter  to  his  colony, 
and  his  accuracy  was  fully  attested  by  Montagu,  the 
agent  for  Virginia.  Grenville,  according  to  these  re- 
porters, urged  '  that  the  late  war  had  found  us  70  mil- 
lions, and  had  left  us  more  than  140  millions  in  debt. 
He  knew  that  all  men  wished  not  to  be  taxed,  but  in 
these  unhappy  circumstances  it  was  his  duty  as  a 
steward  for  the  public  to  make  use  of  every  just  means 
of  improving  the  public  revenue.  He  never  meant, 
however,  to  charge  the  colonies  with  any  part  of  the 
interest  of  the  national  debt.  But,  besides  that  public 
debt,  the  nation  had  incurred  a  great  annual  expense 
in  the  maintaining  of  the  several  new  conquests  which 
we  had  made  during  the  war,  and  by  which  the  colonies 
were  so  much  benefited.  The  American  civil  and  mili- 
tary establishment,  after  the  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
was  only  70,OOOZ.  per  annum.  It  was  now  350,0002. 
This  was  a  great  additional  expense  incurred  upon  Ame- 
rican account,  and  he  thought  therefore  that  America 
ought  to  contribute  towards  it.  He  did  not  expect  that 
the  colonies  should  raise  the  whole ;  but  some  part  of  it 
he  thought  they  ought  to  raise,  and  a  stamp  duty  waa 
intended  for  that  purpose.'  He  then  proceeded  to 
defend  the  particular  tax  which  he  had  selected.  It  waa 
the  easiest.  It  was  the  most  equitable.  It  would  fall 


Almon's  Biographical  Anecdotes,  ii.  88-92. 


CTT.    XT. 


GRENVILLE'S  SCHEME. 


60 


exclusively  on  property.  It  could  be  collected  by  very 
few  officers.  It  would  be  equally  spread  over  America 
and  the  West  Indies.  *I  am  not,  however,'  he  con- 
tinued, *  set  upon  this  tax.  If  the  Americans  dislike  it, 
and  prefer  any  other  method  of  raising  the  money  them- 
selves, I  shall  be  content.  Write  therefore  to  your 
several  colonies,  and  if  they  choose  any  other  mode  I 
ehall  be  satisfied,  provided  the  money  be  but  raised.' l 


1  Almon's  Biographical  Anec- 
dotes, ii.  82-92.  In  the  reply  of 
the  Massachusetts  Assembly  to 
Mauduit,  the  following  passage 
occurs :  '  The  actual  laying  the 
stamp  duty,  you  say,  is  deferred 
till  next  year,  Mr.  Grenville 
being  willing  to  give  the  pro- 
vinces their  option  to  raise 
that  or  some  equivalent  tax, 
"desirous,"  as  he  was  pleased  to 
express  himself,  "  to  consult  the 
ease,  and  quiet,  and  the  goodwill 
of  the  colonies."  '  '  This  suspen- 
sion,' the  letter  adds,  '  amounts 
to  no  more  than  this,  that  if  the 
colonies  will  not  tax  themselves 
as  they  may  be  directed,  the 
Parliament  will  tax  them.' — 
Mauduit's  View  of  the  New  Eng- 
land Colonies,  pp.  95-100.  In 
The  Controversy  between  Great 
Britain  and  her  Colonies,  which 
was  perhaps  the  ablest  statement 
of  the  case  against  the  colonies, 
and  which  was  written  by  Knox, 
the  Under-Secretary  of  State,  and 
one  of  Grenville's  confidential 
writers,  it  is  said  :  '  Mr.  Grenville, 
Indeed,  went  so  far  as  to  desire 
the  agents  to  acquaint  the  colo- 
nies that  if  they  could  not  agree 
among  themselves  upon  raising 
a  revenue  by  their  own  Assem- 
blies, yet  if  they  all,  or  any  of 
them,  disliked  stamp  duties,  and 


would  propose  any  other  sort  of 
tax  which  would  carry  the  ap- 
pearance of  equal  efficacy,  he 
would  adopt  it.  But  he  warmly 
recommended  to  them  the  mak- 
ing grants  by  their  own  Assem- 
blies as  the  most  expedient 
method  for  themselves.' — P.  199. 
Burke,  however,  states  that  Gren- 
ville in  the  many  debates  on  the 
Stamp  Act  never  made  this  apo- 
logy for  himself,  that  he  alwaya 
expressed  his  dislike  to  the 
system  of  raising  money  by  re- 
quisitions to  the  colonial  Assem- 
blies, and  his  preference  for  par- 
liamentary taxation,  and  that  it 
is  therefore  impossible  he  can 
have  recommended  the  colonies 
to  tax  themselves,  though  he 
may  have  urged  them  to  agree 
upon  the  tax  which  they  would 
wish  Parliament  to  propose 
(Speech  on  American  Taxation). 
It  appears,  however,  evident  from 
the  Massachusetts  letter  that  al- 
though Grenville  was  inexorable 
about  the  right  of  Parliament  to 
tax  the  colonies,  the  colonists 
understood  him  to  have  inten- 
tionally left  it  open  to  them  to 
prevent  the  exercise  of  that  right 
by  raising  the  money  themselves. 
All  that  politicians  in  England 
really  wanted  was  an  American 
contribution  to  the  defence  of 


70     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

He  hinted  that  by  agreeing  to  the  tax  the  Americans 
could  make  a  precedent  for  their  being  always  con- 
sulted by  the  ministry  before  they  were  taxed  by  Par- 
liament.1 

Grenville  has  been  much  blamed  for  not  having 
made  a  formal  requisition  to  each  colonial  Assembly, 
as  was  usual  in  time  of  war,  requesting  them  to  raise  a 
sum  for  the  support  of  the  army ;  but  it  is  almost  cer- 
tain that  such  a  requisition  would  in  most,  if  not  all, 
cases  have  been  refused,  and  the  demand  would  have 
been  made  use  of  as  a  proof  that  Parliament  had  no 
right  to  impose  the  required  tax.  It  is  evident,  how- 
ever, that  if  the  colonies  were  anxious  to  avoid  what 
they  regarded  as  the  oppression  of  parliamentary  taxa- 
tion, by  themselves  making  the  provision  for  the  re- 
quired army,  they  had  ample  time  and  opportunity  to 
do  so.  They  were,  however,  quite  resolved  not  to  con- 
tribute to  the  army  in  any  form.  They  had  not  asked 
for  it.  They  disliked  and  dreaded  it  as  strengthening 
the  English  Government.  Their  own  taxes  were  much 
increased  by  burdens  inherited  from  the  war ;  a  great 
part  of  the  country  was  still  suffering  from  recent  de- 
vastations by  the  Indians,  and  the  irritation  caused  by 
the  measures  against  smuggling  was  very  strong.  The 
proposed  tax  was  discussed  in  every  provincial  As  ^m- 
bly,  and  the  result  was  a  long  series  of  resolutions  and 
addresses  to  Parliament  denying  in  the  most  emphatic 
terms  the  right  of  Parliament  to  tax  America,  and  as- 
serting that  if  the  scheme  of  the  minister  were  carried 
into  effect,  *  it  would  establish  the  melancholy  truth 
that  the  inhabitants  of  the  colonies  are  the  slaves  of  the 
Britons  from  whom  they  are  descended.' 2  The  Penn- 

ihe  Empire.    See,  too,  the  state-  291,  292;  iv.  194. 

ment   of    Garth,    the  Agent  of  l  Annual  Register,  1765,  p.  33. 

South  Carolina ;  Bancroft,  ii.  211;  *  See  the  Virginian  Address, 

•>nd  that  of  Franklin,  Works,  i.  Grahame,  iv.  180. 


CH.  xi.  RECEPTION   OF   THE   SCHEME.  71 

sylvanians  alone  made  some  advance  in  the  direction 
of  compromise  by  resolving  that,  '  as  they  always  had 
thought,  so  they  always  shall  think  it  their  duty  to  grant 
aid  to  the  Crown,  according  to  their  abilities,  whenever 
required  of  them  in  the  usual  constitutional  manner/ 
but  they  took  no  measure  to  carry  their  resolution  into 
effect.  In  New  England  the  doctrine  that  Parliament 
had  no  right  whatever  to  legislate  for  America  was  now 
loudly  proclaimed,  and  Otis  was  as  usual  active  in  fan- 
ning resistance  to  the  Government. 

It  wTas  obvious  that  a  very  dangerous  spirit  was 
arising  in  the  colonies.  A  few  voices  were  raised  in 
favour  of  the  admission  of  American  representatives 
into  Parliament ;  but  this  plan,  which  was  advocated  by 
Otis  and  supported  by  the  great  names  of  Franklin  and 
of  Adam  Smith,  would  have  encountered  enormous 
practical  difficulties,  and  it  found  few  friends  in  either 
country.  Grenville  himself,  however,  appears  to  have 
for  a  time  seriously  contemplated  it.  As  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  say  to  his  friends,  he  had  never  entertained 
the  smallest  design  against' American  liberty,  and  the 
sole  object  of  his  colonial  policy  was  to  induce  or  oblige 
America  to  contribute  to  the  expense  of  her  own  de- 
fence in  the  same  manner  as  Ireland.  He  had  consulted 
the  '  lonial  agents  in  order  that  the  colonies  might 
themselves  suggest  the  form  of  the  contribution,  and 
establish  the  precedent  of  being  always  in  such  cases 
consulted.  He  had  deferred  the  Stamp  Act  for  a  whole 
year  in  order  that  the  colonies  might,  if  they  chose, 
make  imperial  taxation  unnecessary ;  and  if  the  Ame- 
ricans thought  that  their  liberties  would  become  more 
secure  by  the  introduction  of  American  representatives 
into  the  British  Parliament,  he  was  quite  ready  to  sup- 
port such  a  scheme.1  He  would  probably,  however, 

1  See  Knox's  Extra-official  Papers,  ii.  24,  25,  31-33.     Hutchin- 

7 


72     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

have  found  it  not  easy  to  carry  in  England,  and  it  was 
soon  after  utterly  repudiated  in  America.  At  the  same 
time,  after  the  open  denial  of  the  competence  of  Parlia- 
ment to  tax  the  colonies,  it  was  especially  difficult  to 
recede,  and  Grenville  had  some  reason  to  think  that  the 
colonial  addresses  exaggerated  the  sentiments  of  the 
people.  When  the  project  was  first  laid  before  the 
agents  of  the  colonies,  the  Agent  for  Rhode  Island  was 
the  only  one  who  unequivocally  repudiated  it.1  The 
form  of  the  tax  was  not  one  which  would  naturally  at- 
tract much  attention,  and  it  might  be  hoped  that  public 
opinion  would  soon  look  upon  it  as  of  the  same  nature 
as  the  postal  revenue  which  the  Imperial  Parliament 
had  long  levied  in  the  colonies. 

In  February  1765  the  agents  of  several  of  the 
colonies  had  an  interview  with  Grenville,  and  made  one 
last  effort  to  dissuade  him  from  introducing  the  measure. 
Grenville,  in  his  reply,  expressed  his  sincere  regret  if 
he  was  exciting  resentments  in  America,  but,  he  said, 
*  it  is  the  duty  of  my  office  to  manage  the  revenue.  I 
havb  really  been  made  to  believe  that,  considering  the 
whole  circumstances  of  the  mother  country  and  the 
colonies,  the  latter  can  and  ought  to  pay  something  to 
the  public  cause.  I  know  of  no  better  way  than  that 
now  pursuing  to  lay  such  a  tax.  If  you  can  tell  of  a 
better  I  will  adopt  it.'  Benjamin  Franklin,  who  had 
shortly  before  come  over  as  Agent  for  Philadelphia, 


son's  Hist,  of  Massachusetts,  p.  as  well  as  the  Lower  House  would 

112.    In  his  Notes  on  the  United  have  set  at  rest  the  whole  ques- 

States,  Sir  Augustus  Foster,  who  tion.'   Lord  Liverpool  was  accus- 

was  English  Secretary  of  Lega-  tomed  to  say  that  no  serious  re- 

tion  at  Washington,  1804-1806,  sistance  to  the  Stamp  Act  would 

mentions    that    both    Jefferson  have  been  made,  if  Grenville  had 

and  his  successor  in  the  Presi-  carried  it  at  once  without  leaving 

dency,  Madison,  expressed  their  a  year  for  discussion.    See  Quar- 

belief   that   '  the  timely  conces-  terly  Review,  No.  cxxxv.  p.  37. 

sion  of  a  few  seats  in  the  Upper  *  See  Grahame,  iv.  188. 


CH.  ix.  THE   STAMP  ACT.  1 1> 

presented  the  resolution  of  the  Assembly  of  his  pro- 
vince, and  urged  that  the  demand  for  money  should 
be  made  in  the  old  constitutional  way  to  the  Assembly 
of  each  province  in  the  form  of  a  requisition  by  the 
governor.  '  Can  you  agree/  rejoined  Grenville,  '  on  the 
proportions  each  colony  should  raise?'  The  question 
touched  the  heart  of  the  difficulty  ;  the  agents  were 
obliged  to  answer  in  the  negative,  and  the  interview 
speedily  closed.  A  few  days  later  the  fatal  Bill  was 
introduced  into  a  nearly  empty  House,  and  it  passed 
through  all  its  stages  almost  unopposed.  It  made  it 
necessary  for  all  bills,  bonds,  leases,  policies  of  insu- 
rance, newspapers,  broadsides,  and  legal  documents  of 
all  kinds  to  be  written  on  stamped  paper,  to  be  sold 
by  public  officers  at  varying  prices  prescribed  by  the 
law.  The  proceeds  were  to  be  paid  into  his  Majesty's 
treasury,  and  they  were  to  be  applied,  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Parliament,  exclusively  to  the  protection  and 
defence  of  the  colonies.1  Offences  against  the  Stamp 
Act  were  to  be  cognisable  in  America  as  in  England  by 
the  Courts  of  Admiralty,  and  without  the  intervention 
of  juries.  In  order  to  soften  the  opposition,  and  to  con- 
sult, to  the  utmost  of  his  power,  the  wishes  of  the  colo- 
nists, Grenville  informed  the  colonial  agents  that  the 
distribution  of  the  stamps  should  be  confided  not  to 
Englishmen  but  to  Americans,  and  he  requested  them 
to  name  such  persons  in  their  respective  provinces  as 
they  thought  best  qualified  for  the  purpose  and  most 
acceptable  to  the  inhabitants.  They  all  complied  with 
the  request,  and  Franklin  named  one  of  his  intimate 
friends  as  stamp  distributor  for  Pennsylvania. 

The  Stamp  Act,  when  its  ultimate  consequences  are 
considered,  must  be  deemed  one  of  the  most  momentou8 
legislative  Acts  in  the  history  of  mankind ;  but  in  Eng- 

1  5  Geo.  III.  o.  12. 


74    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

land  it  passed  almost  completely  unnoticed.  The  Wilkes 
excitement  absorbed  public  attention,  and  no  English 
politician  appears  to  have  realised  the  importance  of  the 
measure.  It  is  scarcely  mentioned  in  the  contemporary 
correspondence  of  Horace  Walpole,  of  Grenville,  or  of 
Pitt.  Burke,  who  was  not  yet  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  afterwards  declared  that  he  had  followed 
the  debate  from  the  gallery,  and  that  he  had  never 
heard  a  more  languid  one  in  the  House  ;  that  not  more 
than  two  or  three  gentlemen  spoke  against  the  Bill ; 
that  there  was  but  one  division  in  the  whole  course  of 
the  discussion,  and  that  the  minority  in  that  division 
was  not  more  than  thirty-nine  or  forty.  In  the  House 
of  Lords  he  could  not  remember  that  there  had  been 
either  a  debate  or  division,  and  he  was  certain  that 
there  was  no  protest.1  Pitt  was  at  this  time  confined 
to  his  bed  by  illness,  and  Conway,  Beckford,  and  Barre 
appear  to  have  been  almost  the  only  opponents  of  the 
measure.  The  latter,  whose  American  experience  during 
the  Canadian  war  had  given  him  considerable  weight, 
described  the  colonists,  in  a  fine  piece  of  declamation, 
as  '  sons  of  liberty  '  planted  in  America  by  the  oppres- 
sion and  strengthened  by  the  neglect  of  England,  and 
he  predicted  that  the  same  love  of  freedom  which  had 
led  them  into  an  uncultivated  and  inhospitable  country, 
and  had  supported  them  through  so  many  hardships 
and  so  many  dangers,  would  accompany  them  still,  and 
would  inspire  them  with  an  indomitable  resolution  to 

1  Burke's  speech  on  American  who  is  the  present  Pitt  and  the 

taxation,  April  1774.  The  follow-  dread  of  all  the  vociferous  Norths 

ing  is  Horace  Walpole's  sole  no-  and  Kigbys,  on  whose  lungs  de- 

tice  of  the  measure :  •  There  has  pended  so  much  of   Mr.  Gren- 

been  nothing  of  note  in  Parlia-  ville's  power.'     Walpole  to  Hert- 

ment  but  one  slight  day  on  the  ford,  Feb.  12,  1765.    Beckford, 

American  taxes,  which  Charles  some  years  later,  mentioned  that 

Townshend  supporting,  received  he  had  opposed  the  St  imp  Act. — • 

ft  pretty  heavy  thump  from  Barr6,  Cavendish  Debates,  i.  41. 


Cfi.  xi.      TAXATION  AND  REPRESENTATION.         75 

vindicate  their  violated  liberty.  His  words  appear  to 
have  excited  no  attention  in  England,  and  were  not 
even  reported  in  the  contemporary  parliamentary  his- 
tory ;  but  they  were  at  once  transmitted  to  America  by 
the  Agent  for  Connecticut,  who  had  been  present  in  the 
gallery,  and  they  contributed  not  a  little  to  stimulate 
the  flame.  The  '  sons  of  liberty '  became  from  this  time 
the  favourite  designation  of  the  American  associations 
against  the  Stamp  Act. 

In  truth,  the  measure,  although  it  was  by  no  means 
as  unjust  or  as  unreasonable  as  has  been  alleged,  and 
although  it  might  perhaps  in  some  periods  of  colonial 
history  have  passed  almost  unperceived,  did  unquestion- 
ably infringe  upon  a  principle  which  the  English  race 
both  at  home  and  abroad  have  always  regarded  with  a 
peculiar  jealousy.  The  doctrine  that  taxation  and  re- 
presentation are  in  free  nations  inseparably  connected, 
that  constitutional  government  is  closely  connected  with 
the  rights  of  property,  and  that  no  people  can  be  legi- 
timately taxed  except  by  themselves  or  their  represen- 
tatives, lay  at  the  very  root  of  the  English  conception 
of  political  liberty.  The  same  principle  that  had  led 
the  English  people  to  provide  so  carefully  in  the  Great 
Charter,  in  a  well-known  statute  of  Edward  L,  and  in 
the  Bill  of  Rights,  that  no  taxation  should  be  drawn 
from  them  except  by  the  English  Parliament ;  the  same 
principle  which  had  gradually  invested  the  representa- 
tive branch  of  the  Legislature  with  the  special  and 
peculiar  function  of  granting  supplies,  led  the  colonists 
to  maintain  that  their  liberty  would  be  destroyed  if 
they  were  taxed  by  a  Legislature  in  which  they  had  no 
representatives,  and  which  sat  3,000  miles  from  their 
shore.  It  was  a  principle  which  had  been  respected  by 
Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth  in  the  most  arbitrary  mo- 
ments of  their  reigns,  and  its  violation  by  Charles  I. 
was  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  the  Rebellion.  The  prin- 


76     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   cs.  XL 

ciple  which  led  Hampden  to  refuse  to  pay  20s.  of  ship 
money  was  substantially  the  same  as  that  which  inspired 
the  resistance  to  the  Stamp  Act.  It  might  be  impos- 
sible to  show  by  the  letter  of  the  law  that  there  was 
any  generical  distinction  between  taxing  and  other 
legislative  Acts ;  but  in  the  constitutional  traditions  of 
the  English  people  a  broad  line  did  undoubtedly  exist. 
As  Burke  truly  said,  '  the  great  contests  for  freedom  in 
this  country  were  from  the  earliest  times  chiefly  on  the 
question  of  taxing.'  The  English  people  have  always 
held  that  as  long  as  their  representatives  retain  the 
power  of  the  purse  they  will  be  able  at  last  to  check 
every  extravagance  of  tyranny,  but  that  whenever  this 
is  given  up  the  whole  fabric  of  their  liberty  is  under- 
mined. The  English  Parliament  had  always  abstained 
from  imposing  taxes  on  Wales  until  Welsh  members 
sat  among  them.  When  the  right  of  self-taxation  was 
withdrawn  from  Convocation,  the  clergy  at  once  assumed 
and  exercised  the  privilege  of  voting  for  Members  of 
Parliament  in  virtue  of  their  ecclesiastical  freeholds. 
The  English  Parliament  repeatedly  asserted  its  autho- 
rity over  the  Parliament  of  Ireland,  and  it  often  exerted 
it  in  a  manner  which  was  grossly  tyrannical;  but  it 
never  imposed  any  direct  tax  upon  the  Irish  people. 
The  weighty  language  of  Henry  Cromwell,  who  governed 
Ireland  in  one  of  the  darkest  periods  of  her  history,  was 
remembered :  '  I  am  glad,3  he  wrote,  *  to  hear  that  as 
well  non-legal  as  contra-legal  ways  of  raising  money 
are  not  hearkened  to.  ...  Errors  in  raising  money 
are  the  compendious  ways  to  cause  a  general  discon- 
tent; for  whereas  other  things  are  but  the  concern- 
ments of  some,  this  is  of  all.  Wherefore,  I  hope  God 
will  in  His  mercy  not  lead  us  into  temptation.' l 


1  H.  Cromwell  to   Thnrloe,  February  24,   1657.     Thurloe  State 
Papers,  vi.  820. 


CH.  xi.      TAXATION  AND  REPRESENTATION.         7? 

It  is  quite  true  that  this  theory,  like  that  of  the 
social  contract  which  has  also  borne  a  great  part  in  the 
history  of  political  liberty,  will  not  bear  a  severe  and 
philosophical  examination.  The  opponents  of  the 
American  claims  were  able  to  reply,  with  undoubted 
truth,  that  at  least  nine-tenths  of  the  English  people 
had  no  votes;  that  the  great  manufacturing  towns, 
which  contributed  so  largely  to  the  public  burdens, 
were  for  the  most  part  wholly  unrepresented ;  that  the 
minority  in  Parliament  voted  only  in  order  to  be  syste- 
matically overruled ;  and  that,  in  a  country  where  the 
constituencies  were  as  unequal  as  in  England,  that 
minority  often  represented  the  large  majority  of  the 
voters.  It  was  easy  to  show  that  the  financial  system 
of  the  country  .consisted  chiefly  of  a  number  of  parti- 
cular taxes  imposed  on  particular  classes  and  industries, 
and  that  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  these  taxes  were 
levied  not  only  without  the  consent  but  in  spite  of  the 
strenuous  opposition  of  the  representatives  of  those  who 
paid  them.  The  doctrine  that  '  whatever  a  man  has 
honestly  acquired  is  absolutely  his  own,  and  cannot 
without  robbery  be  taken  from  him,  except  by  his  own 
consent,'  if  it  were  applied  rigidly  to  taxation,  would 
reduce  every  society  to  anarchy;  for  there  is  no  tax 
which  on  such  principles  a  large  proportion  of  the  tax- 
payers would  not  be  authorised  in  resisting.  It  was  a 
first  principle  of  the  Constitution  that  a  Member  of 
Parliament  was  the  representative  not  merely  of  his  own 
constituency,  but  also  of  the  whole  Empire.  Men  con- 
nected with,  or  at  least  specially  interested  in  the  colo- 
nies, always  found  their  way  into  Parliament ;  and  the 
very  fact  that  the  colonial  arguments  were  maintained  ( 
with  transcendent  power  within  its  walls  was  sufficient 
to  show  that  the  colonies  were  virtually  represented. 

Such  arguments  gave  an  easy  dialectic  victory  to 
the  supporters  of  the  Stamp  Act ;  but  in  the  eyes  of  a 


78     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   Ctt.  xs. 

true  statesman  they  are  very  insufficient.  Severe  accu- 
racy of  definition,  refinement  and  precision  of  reasoning, 
are  for  the  most  part  wholly  out  of  place  in  practical 
politics.  It  might  be  true  that  there  was  a  line  where 
internal  and  external  taxation,  taxation  for  purposes  of 
commerce  and  taxation  for.  purposes  of  revenue,  faded 
imperceptibly  into  one  another;  but  still  there  was  a 
broad,  rough  distinction  between  the  two  provinces 
which  was  sufficiently  palpable  to  form  the  basis  of  a 
colonial  policy.  The  theory  connecting  representation 
with  taxation  was  susceptible  of  a  similar  justification. 
A  Parliament  elected  by  a  considerable  part  of  the 
English  people,  drawn  from  the  English  people,  sitting 
in  the  midst  of  them,  and  exposed  to  their  social  and 
intellectual  influence,  was  assumed  to.  represent  the 
whole  nation,  and  the  decision  of  its  majority  was 
assumed  to  be  the  decision  of  the  whole.  If  it  be  asked 
how  these  assumptions  could  be  defended,  it  can  only 
be  answered  that  they  had  rendered  possible  a  form  of 
government  which  had  arrested  the  incursions  of  the 
royal  prerogative,  had  given  England  a  longer  period 
and  a  larger  measure  of  self-government  than  was 
enjoyed  by  any  other  great  European  nation,  and  had 
created  a  public  spirit  sufficiently  powerful  to  defend 
the  liberties  that  had  been  won.  Such  arguments, 
however  worthless  they  might  appear  to  a  lawyer  or  a 
theorist,  ought  to  be  very  sufficient  to  a  statesman. 
Manchester  and  Sheffield  had  no  more  direct  represen- 
tation in  Parliament  than  Boston  or  Philadelphia ;  but 
the  relations  of  unrepresented  Englishmen  and  of  colo- 
nists to  the  English  Parliament  were  very  different. 
Parliament  could  never  long  neglect  the  fierce  beatings 
of  the  waves  of  popular  discontent  around  its  walls.  It 
might  long  continue  perfectly  indifferent  to  the  wishes 
of  a  population  3,000  miles  from  the  English  shore. 
When  Parliament  taxed  the  English  people,  the  taxing 


CH.  xi.      TAXATION  AND  REPRESENTATION.         79 

body  itself  felt  the  weight  of  the  burden  it  imposed ; 
but  Parliament  felt  no  part  of  the  weight  of  colonial 
taxation,  and  had  therefore  a  direct  interest  in  increas- 
ing it.  The  English  people  might  justly  complain  that 
they  were  taxed  by  a  body  in  which  they  were  very 
imperfectly  represented ;  but  this  was  a  widely  different 
thing  from  being  taxed  by  the  Legislature  of  another 
country.  To  adopt  the  powerful  language  of  an  Irish 
writer,  no  free  people  will  ever  admit  '  that  persons  dis- 
tant from  them  1,000  leagues  are  to  tax  them  to  what 
amount  they  please,  without  their  consent,  without 
knowing  them  or  their  concerns,  without  any  sympathy 
of  affection  or  interest,  without  even  sharing  themselves 
in  the  taxes  they  impose — on  the  contrary,  diminishing 
their  own  burdens  exactly  in  the  degree  they  increase 
theirs.' l 

The  Stamp  Act  received  the  royal  assent  on  March 
22,  1765,  and  it  was  to  come  into  operation  on  the  1st 
of  November  following.  It  was  accompanied  by  a  mea- 
sure granting  the  colonies  bounties  for  the  import  of 
their  timber  into  England,  permitting  them  to  export 
it  freely  to  Ireland,  Madeira,  the  Azores,  and  any  part 
of  Europe  south  of  Cape  Finisterre ;  and  in  some  other 
ways  slightly  relaxing  the  trade  restrictions.2  A  mea- 
sure was  also  passed  which  obliged  the  colonists  to 
provide  the  British  troops  stationed  among  them  with 
quarters,  and  also  with  fire,  candles,  beds,  vinegar,  and 
salt.  Neither  of  these  measures,  however,  at  the  time 
excited  much  attention,  and  public  interest  in  the  colo- 
nies was  wholly  concentrated  upon  the  Stamp  Act. 
The  long  delay,  which  had  been  granted  in  the  hope 
that  it  might  lead  to  some  proposal  of  compromise  from 
America,  had  been  sedulously  employed  by  skilful 

1  Considerations  on  the  Depen-      1769,  p.  75. 
dencies  of  Great  Britain  (by  Sir          2  5  Geo.  HI.  o.  45. 
Hercules     Langrishe),     Dublin, 


80     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xr. 

agitators  in  stimulating  the  excitement ;  and  when  the 
news  arrived  that  the  Stamp  Act  had  been  carried,  the 
train  was  fully  laid,  and  the  indignation  of  the  colonies 
rose  at  once  into  a  flame.  Virginia  set  the  example  by 
a  series  of  resolutions  which  were  termed  '  the  alarum 
bell  to  the  disaffected,'  and  which  were  speedily  copied 
in  the  other  provinces.  They  declared  that  the  colo- 
nists were  entitled  by  charter  to  all  the  liberties  and 
privileges  of  natural-born  subjects  ;  *  that  the  taxation 
of  the  people  by  themselves,  or  by  persons  chosen  by 
themselves  to  represent  them,  ...  is  the  distinguish- 
ing characteristic  of  British  freedom,  without  which  tha 
ancient  constitution  cannot  exist,'  and  that  this  inesti- 
mable right  had  always  been  recognised  by  the  King 
and  people  of  Great  Britain  as  undoubtedly  belonging 
to  the  colonies.  A  congress  of  representatives  of  nine 
States  was  held  at  New  York,  and  in  an  extremely  able 
State  paper  they  drew  up  the  case  of  the  colonies. 
They  acknowledged  that  they  owed  allegiance  to  the 
Crown,  and  *  all  due  subordination  to  that  august  body, 
the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  ; '  but  they  maintained 
that  they  were  entitled  to  all  the  inherent  rights  and 
liberties  of  natural-born  subjects ;  *  that  it  is  insepar- 
ably essential  to  the  freedom  of  a  people,  and  the  un- 
doubted right  of  Englishmen,  that  no  taxes  be  imposed 
on  them  but  with  their  own  consent,  given  personally 
or  by  their  representatives ; '  that  the  colonists  ;  are 
not,  and  from  their  local  circumstances  cannot  be,  re- 
presented in  the  House  of  Commons  of  Great  Britain ; ' 
that  the  only  representatives  of  the  colonies,  and  there- 
fore the  only  persons  constitutionally  competent  to  tax 
them,  were  the  members  chosen  in  the  colonies  by 
themselves ;  and  *  that  all  supplies  of  the  Crown  being 
free  gifts  from  the  people,  it  is  unreasonable  and  incon- 
sistent with  the  principles  and  spirit  of  the  British 
Constitution  for  the  people  of  Great  Britain  to  grant  to 


CH.  xi.  RIOTS  IN  AMERICA.  81 

his  Majesty  the  property  of  the  colonies.'  A  petition 
to  the  King  and  memorials  to  both  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment were  drawn  up  embodying  these  views.1 

It  was  not,  however,  only  by  such  legal  measures 
that  the  opposition  was  shown.  A  furious  outburst  of 
popular  violence  speedily  showed  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  enforce  the  Act.  In  Boston,  Oliver,  the 
secretary  of  the  province,  who  had  accepted  the  office  of 
stamp  distributor,  was  hung  in  effigy  on  a  tree  in  the 
main  street  of  the  town.  The  building  which  had  been 
erected  as  a  Stamp  Office  was  levelled  with  the  dust ; 
the  house  of  Oliver  was  attacked,  plundered,  and  wrecked, 
and  he  was  compelled  by  the  mob  to  resign  his  office 
and  to  swear  beneath  the  tree  on  which  his  effigy  had 
been  so  ignominiously  hung,  that  he  never  would 
resume  it.  A  few  nights  later  the  riots  recommenced 
with  redoubled  fury.  The  houses  of  two  of  the  leading, 
officials  connected  with  the  Admiralty  Court  and  with 
the  Custom-house  were  attacked  and  rifled,  and  the 
files  and  records  of  the  Admiralty  Court  were  burnt. 
The  mob,  intoxicated  with  the  liquors  which  they  had 
found  in  one  of  the  cellars  they  had  plundered,  next 
turned  to  the  house  of  Hutchinson,  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor  and  Chief  Justice  of  the  province.  Hutchin- 
son was  not  only  the  second  person  in  rank  in  the 
colony,  he  was  also  a  man  who  had  personal  claims  of 
the  highest  kind  upon  his  countrymen.  He  was  an 
American,  a  Calvinist,  a  member  of  one  of  the  oldest 
colonial  families,  and  in  a  country  where  literary  enter- 
prise was  very  uncommon  he  had  devoted  a  great  part 
of  his  life  to  investigating  the  history  of  his  native  pro- 
vince. His  rare  ability,  his  stainless  private  character, 
and  his  great  charm  of  manner  were  universally  recog- 
nised ;  *  he  had  at  one  time  been  one  of  the  most 

1  See  Story's   Constitution  of          9  See  Tudor 's  Life  of  Otis,  pp. 
the  United  States,  i.  175,  176.  424-433. 


82  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.      en.  xi. 

popular  men  in  the  colony,  and  he  had  been  selected 
by  the  great  majority  of  the  Assembly  as  their  agent 
to  oppose  in  England  the  restrictive  commercial  laws 
of  Grenville.  Bernard,  however,  considering  this  posi- 
tion incompatible  with  the  office  of  Lieutenant-Governor, 
which  Hutchinson  had  held  since  1758,  induced  him  to 
decline  it;  and  although  Hutchinson  was  opposed  to 
the  policy  of  the  Stamp  Act,  the  determination  with 
which  he  acted  as  Chief  Justice  in  supporting  the  law 
soon  made  him  obnoxious  to  the  mob.  He  had  barely 
time  to  escape  with  his  family,  when  his  house,  which 
was  the  finest  in  Boston,  was  attacked  and  destroyed. 
His  plate,  his  furniture,  his  pictures,  the  public  docu- 
ments in  his  possession,  and  a  noble  library  which  he 
had  spent  thirty  years  in  collecting,  were  plundered 
and  burnt.  Resolutions  were  afterwards  carried  in  the 
town  for  suppressing  riots,  but  nothing  was  done,  and 
it  was  evident  that  the  prevailing  feeling  was  with  the 
rioters.  Mayhew,  one  of  the  most  popular  preachers  of 
Boston,  had  just  before  denounced  the  Stamp  Act  from 
the  pulpit,  preaching  from  the  text,  *  I  would  that  they 
were  even  cut  off  which  trouble  you/  A  leading  trades- 
man who  had  been  notoriously  a  ringleader  was  appre- 
hended by  the  sheriffs,  but  he  was  released  without 
inquiry  in  consequence  of  a  large  portion  of  the  civic 
guard  having  threatened  to  disband  themselves  if  he 
were  committed  to  prison.  Eight  or  ten  persons  of 
inferior  note  were  actually  imprisoned,  but  the  mob 
compelled  the  gaoler  to  surrender  the  keys  and  release 
them,  and  not  a  single  person  was  really  punished.1 

The  flame  rapidly  spread.  In  the  newly  annexed 
provinces,  indeed,  and  in  most  of  the  West  India 
islands,  the  Act  was  received  without  difficulty,  but  in 


1  Holmes'  Annals  of  America,      nual   Register,   1765.      Adams' 
1765.    Grahame's  Hist.  iv.    An-      Diary,  Works,  ii.  156. 


CH.  xi.  RIOTS  IN  AMERICA.  83 

nearly  every  American  colony  those  who  had  consented 
to  be  stamp  distributors  were  hung  and  burnt  in  effigy, 
and  compelled  by  mob  violence  to  resign  their  posts.- 
The  houses  of  many  who  were  known  to  be  supporters 
of  the  Act  or  sympathisers  with  the  Government  were 
attacked  and  plundered.  Some  were  compelled  to  fly 
from  the  colonies,  and  the  authority  of  the  Home 
Government  was  exposed  to  every  kind  of  insult.  In 
New  York  the  effigy  of  the  Governor  was  paraded  with 
that  of  the  devil  round  the  town  and  then  publicly 
burnt,  and  threatening  letters  were  circulated  menacing 
the  lives  of  those  who  distributed  stamps.1  The  mer- 
chants of  the  chief  towns  entered  into  agreements  to 
order  no  more  goods  from  England,  to  cancel  all  orders 
already  given,  in  some  cases  even  to  send  no  remittances 
to  England  in  payment  of  their  debts,  till  the  Stamp 
Act  was  repealed.  The  lawyers  combined  to  make  no 
use  of  the  stamped  papers.  In  order  that  the  colonies 
might  be  able  to  dispense  with  assistance  from  England, 
great  efforts  were  made  to  promote  manufactures.  The 
richest  citizens  set  the  example  of  dressing  in  old  or 
homespun  clothes  rather  than  wear  new  clothes  im- 
ported from  England;  and  in  order  to  supply  the 
deficiency  of  wool,  a  general  agreement  was  made  to 
abstain  from  eating  lamb. 

When  the  1st  of  November  arrived,  the  bells  were 
tolled  as  for  the  funeral  of  a  nation.  The  flags  were 
hung  half-mast  high.  The  shops  were  shut,  and  the 
Stamp  Act  was  hawked  about  with  the  inscription, 
*  The  folly  of  England  and  the  ruin  of  America.'  The 
newspapers  were  obliged  by  the  new  law  to  bear  the 
stamp,  which  probably  contributed  much  to  the  extreme 
virulence  of  their  opposition,  and  many  of  them  now 


1  Documents  relating  to   the  Colonial  Hist,  of  New  York,  vii, 
770-775. 


84     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

appeared  with  a  death's  head  in  the  place  where  the 
stamp  should  have  been.  It  was  found  not  only  im- 
possible to  distribute  stamps,  but  even  impossible 
to  keep  them  in  the  colonies,  for  the  mob  seized  on 
every  box  which  was  brought  from  England  and  com- 
mitted it  to  the  flames.  Stamps  were  required  for  the 
validity  of  every  legal  document,  yet  in  most  of  the 
colonies  not  a  single  sheet  of  stamped  paper  could 
be  found.  The  law  courts  were  for  a  time  closed, 
and  almost  all  business  was  suspended.  At  last  the 
governors,  considering  the  impossibilty  of  carrying  on 
public  business  or  protecting  property  under  these  con- 
ditions, took  the  law  into  their  own  hands,  and  issued 
letters  authorising  non-compliance  with  the  Act  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  absolutely  impossible  to  procure  the 
requisite  stamps  in  the  colony. 

The  determination  of  the  opponents  of  the  Act  was 
all  the  greater  because  in  the  interval  between  its  en- 
actment and  the  period  in  which  it  was  to  come  into 
operation  a  change  had  taken  place  in  the  Administra- 
tion at  home.  The  Grenville  Ministry  had  fallen  in 
July,  and  had  been  succeeded  by  that  of  Rockingham  ; 
and  Conway,  who  had  been  one  of  the  few  opponents 
of  the  Stamp  Act,  was  now  Secretary  of  State  for  the 
Colonies. 

Up  to  this  time  colonial  affairs  had  scarcely  excited 
any  attention  in  the  English  political  world.  The  Duke 
of  Cumberland,  in  a  long  and  detailed  memorial,1  has 
recounted  the  negotiations  he  was  instructed  to  carry 
on  with  Pitt  in  April  and  May  1765,  with  a  view  to 
inducing  that  statesman  to  combine  with  the  Rocking- 
ham party  in  a  new  ministry,  and  it  is  very  remarkable 
that  in  this  memorial  there  is  not  a  word  relating  to 
the  colonies.  The  general  political  condition  of  the 

1  Albemarle's  Life  of  Bockingham,  i.  185-203. 


CH.  xi.  ENGLISH  INDIFFERENCE  TO  THE  STAMP  ACT.      85 

country  was  carefully  reviewed.  Much  was  said  about 
the  Regency  Bill,  the  Cyder  Bill,  the  dismissal  of 
officers  on  account  of  their  votes,  the  illegality  of 
general  warrants,  the  abuses  of  military  patronage,  the 
growing  power  of  the  House  of  Bourbon,  the  propriety 
of  attempting  a  new  alliance  with  Prussia ;  but  there  is 
not  the  smallest  evidence  that  either  Pitt  or  Cumberland, 
or  any  of  the  other  statesmen  who  were  concerned  in 
the  negotiation,  were  conscious  that  any  serious  ques- 
tion was  impending  in  America.  The  Stamp  Act  had 
contributed  nothing  to  the  downfall  of  Grenville;  it 
attracted  so  little  attention  that  it  was  only  in  the  last 
days  of  1765  or  the  first  days  of  1766  that  the  new 
ministers  learnt  the  views  of  Pitt  upon  the  subject ; l 
it  was  probably  a  complete  surprise  to  them  to  learn 
that  it  had  brought  the  colonies  to  the  verge  of  rebel- 
lion, and  in  the  first  months  of  their  power  they  appear 
to  have  been  quite  uncertain  what  policy  they  would 
pursue.  One  of  the  first  persons  in  England  who  fully 
realised  the  magnitude  of  the  question  was  the  King. 
On  December  5,  1765,  he  wrote  to  Con  way:  'I  am 
more  and  more  grieved  at  the  accounts  of  America. 
Where  this  spirit  will  end  is  not  to  be  said.  It  is  un- 
doubtedly the  most  serious  matter  that  ever  came  before 
Parliament ;  it  requires  more  deliberation,  candour,  and 
temper  than  I  fear  it  will  meet  with.' 2 

The  ministers  would  gladly  have  left  the  question  of 
American  taxation  undecided,  but  this  was  no  longer 
possible.  Parliament  had  almost  unanimously  asserted 
its  right,  and  the  colonial  Assemblies  had  defiantly  de- 
nied it.  The  servants  of  the  Crown  had  in  nearly  every 
colony  been  insulted  or  plundered,  and  the  honour  of 
England  and  of  the  Parliament  was  deeply  touched.  The 
Ministry  was  very  weak ;  Pitt  had  refused  to  join  it ; 

1  Albemarle's  Life  of  Rockingliam,  i.  269.  *  Ibid.  i.  256. 


86     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

the  King  disliked  and  distrusted  it,  and  lie  was  strongly 
in  favour  of  the  coercion  of  America.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  was  clear  that  the  Act  could  not  be  enforced  without 
war,  and  the  merchants  all  over  England  were  suffering 
seriously  from  the  suspension  of  the  American  trade. 
Petitions  were  presented  from  the  traders  of  London, 
Bristol,  Liverpool,  and  other  towns,  stating  that  the 
colonists  were  indebted  to  the  merchants  of  this  country 
to  the  amount  of  several  millions  sterling  for  English 
goods  which  had  been  exported  to  America ;  that  the 
colonists  had  hitherto  faithfully  made  good  their  en- 
gagements, but  that  they  now  declared  their  inability  to 
do  so ;  that  they  would  neither  give  orders  for  new  goods 
nor  pay  for  those  which  they  had  actually  received  ;  and 
that  unless  Parliament  speedily  retraced  its  steps,  mul- 
titudes of  English  manufacturers  would  be  reduced  to 
bankruptcy.  In  Manchester,  Nottingham,  Leeds,  and 
many  other  towns,  thousands  of  artisans  had  been  thrown 
out  of  employment.  Glasgow  complained  that  the  Stamp 
Act  was  threatening  it  with  absolute  ruin,  for  its  trade 
was  principally  with  America,  and  not  less  than  half  a 
million  of  money  was  due  by  the  colonists  of  Maryland 
and  Virginia  alone  to  Glasgow  merchants.1 

Parliament  met  on  December  17,  1765,  and  the  at- 
titude of  the  different  parties  was  speedily  disclosed.  A 
powerful  Opposition,  led  by  Grenville  and  Bedford, 
strenuously  urged  that  no  relaxation  or  indulgence 
should  be  granted  to  the  colonists.  In  two  successive 
sessions  the  policy  of  taxing  America  had  been  delibe- 
rately affirmed,  and  if  Parliament  now  suffered  itself  to 
be  defied  or  intimidated  its  authority  would  be  for  ever 
at  an  end.  The  method  of  reasoning  by  which  the 
Americans  maintained  that  they  could  not  be  taxed  by 


1  Parl.  Hist.  xvi.  133-137 ;  Walpole's  Memoirs,  ii.  296  ;   Burke's 
Correspondence,  i.  100. 


CH.  xi.  ARGUMENTS   OF   GRENVILLE.  87 

a  Parliament  in  which  they  were  not  represented,  might 
be  applied  with  equal  plausibility  to  the  Navigation  Act 
and  to  every  other  branch  of  imperial  legislation  for  the 
colonies,  and  it  led  directly  to  the  disintegration  of  the 
Empire.  The  supreme  authority  of  Parliament  chiefly 
held  the  different  parts  of  that  Empire  together.  The 
right  of  taxation  was  an  essential  part  of  the  sovereign 
power.  The  colonial  constitutions  were  created  by  royal 
charter,  and  it  could  not  be  admitted  that  the  King, 
while  retaining  his  own  sovereignty  over  certain  por- 
tions of  his  dominions,  could  by  a  mere  exercise  of  his 
prerogative  withdraw  them  wholly  or  in  part  from  the 
authority  of  the  British  Parliament.  It  was  the  right 
and  the  duty  of  the  Imperial  Legislature  to  determine 
in  what  proportions  the  different  parts  of  the  Empire 
should  contribute  to  the  defence  of  the  whole,  and  to  see 
that  no  one  part  evaded  its  obligations  and  unjustly 
transferred  its  share  to  the  others.  The  conduct  of  the 
colonies,  in  the  eyes  of  these  politicians,  admitted  of  no 
excuse  or  palliation.  The  disputed  right  of  taxation  was 
established  by  a  long  series  of  legal  authorities,  and  there 
was  no  real  distinction  between  internal  and  external 
taxation.  It  now  suited  the  Americans  to  describe 
themselves  as  apostles  of  liberty,  and  to  denounce  Eng- 
land as  an  oppressor.  It  was  a  simple  truth  that  Eng- 
land governed  her  colonies  more  liberally  than  any  other 
country  in  the  world.  They  were  the  only  existing 
colonies  which  enjoyed  real  political  liberty.  Their  com- 
mercial system  was  more  liberal  than  that  of  any  other 
colonies.  They  had  attained,  under  British  rule,  to  a 
degree  of  prosperity  which  was  surpassed  in  no  quarter 
of  the  globe.  England  had  loaded  herself  with  debt  in 
order  to  remove  the  one  great  danger  to  their  future ; 
she  cheerfully  bore  the  whole  burden  of  their  protection 
by  sea.  At  the  Peace  of  Paris  she  had  made  their  in- 
terests the  very  first  object  of  her  policy,  and  she  only 
8 


88     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   ra.  xi. 

asked  them  in  return  to  bear  a  portion  of  the  cost  of 
their  own  defence.  Somewhat  more  than  eight  millions 
of  Englishmen  were  burdened  with  a  national  debt  of 
140,000,0002.  The  united  debt  of  about  two  millions  of 
Americans  was  now  less  than  800,000?.  The  annual 
sum  the  colonists  were  asked  to  contribute  in  the  form 
of  stamp  duties  was  less  than  100,OOOL,  with  an  express 
provision  that  no  part  of  that  sum  should  be  devoted  to 
any  other  purpose  than  the  defence  and  protection  of 
the  colonies.  And  the  country  which  refused  to  bear 
this  small  tax  was  so  rich  that  in  the  space  of  three  years 
it  had  paid  off  1,755,0002.  of  its  debt.  No  demand  could 
be  more  moderate  and  equitable  than  that  of  England ; 
and  amid  all  the  high-sounding  declamations  that  were 
waited  across  the  Atlantic,  it  was  not  difficult  to  perceive 
that  the  true  motive  of  the  resistance  was  of  the  vulgar- 
est  kind.  It  was  a  desire  to  pay  as  little  as  possible  ; 
to  throw  as  much  as  possible  upon  the  mother  country. 
Nor  was  the  mode  of  resistance  more  respectable — 
the  plunder  of  private  houses  and  custom  houses  ;  mob 
violence  connived  at  by  all  classes  and  perfectly  un- 
punished ;  agreements  of  merchants  to  refuse  to  pay 
their  private  debts  in  order  to  attain  political  ends.  If 
this  was  the  attitude  of  America  within  two  years  of  the 
Peace  of  Paris,  if  these  were  the  first  fruits  of  the  new 
sense  of  security  which  British  triumphs  in  Canada  had 
given,  could  it  be  doubted  that  concessions  would  only 
be  the  prelude  to  new  demands  ?  Already  the  Custom- 
house officers  were  attacked  by  the  mobs  almost  as 
fiercely  as  the  stamp  distributors.  Already  Otis,  the 
most  popular  advocate  of  the  American  cause,  was  ridi- 
culing the  distinction  between  internal  and  external 
taxation,  and  denying  that  the  British  Legislature  pos- 
sessed any  rightful  authority  in  America.  Already  a 
highly  seditious  press  had  grown  up  in  the  colonies,  and 
fco  talk  scarcely  disguised  treason  had  become  the  best 


CH.  xi.         ARGUMENTS   OF   GRENVILLE   AND   PITT.  89 

passport  to  popular  favour.  It  would  be  impossible  for 
Parliament,  if  it  now  receded,  to  retain  permanently  any 
legislative  authority  over  the  colonies  ;  and  if  this,  too, 
were  given  up,  the  unity  of  the  Empire  would  be  but  a 
name,  and  America  would  in  reality  contribute  nothing 
to  its  strength.  If  ministers  now  repealed  the  Stamp 
Act  they  would  be  guilty  of  treachery  to  England.  They 
would  abdicate  a  vital  portion  of  the  sovereignty  which 
England  rightfully  possessed.  They  would  humiliate 
the  British  Parliament  before  the  Empire  and  before  the 
world.  They  would  establish  the  fatal  principle  that  it 
must  never  again  ask  any  of  the  distant  portions  of  the 
Empire  to  contribute  to  the  burden  of  their  own  per- 
manent defence.  They  would  establish  the  still  more 
fatal  precedent  that  the  best  way  of  inducing  Parliament 
to  repeal  an  obnoxious  tax  was  to  refuse  to  pay  it,  and 
to  hound  on  mobs  against  those  who  were  entrusted  with 
its  collection. 

These  were  the  chief  arguments  on  the  side  of  the 
late  ministers.  Pitt,  on  the  other  hand,  rose  from  his 
sick-bed,  and  in  speeches  of  extraordinary  eloquence, 
which  produced  an  amazing  effect  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic,  he  justified  the  resistance  of  the  colonists. 
He  stood  apart  from  all  parties,  and,  while  he  declared 
that  c  every  capital  measure  '  of  the  late  ministry  was 
wrong,  he  ostentatiously  refused  to  give  his  confidence 
to  their  successors.  He  maintained  in  the  strongest 
terms  the  doctrine  that  self-taxation  is  the  essential  and 
discriminating  circumstance  of  political  freedom.  His 
opinion  on  the  great  question  at  issue  cannot  be  better 
expressed  than  in  his  own  terse  and  luminous  sentences. 
1  It  is  my  opinion,'  he  said,  '  that  this  kingdom  has  no 
right  to  lay  a  tax  upon  the  colonies.  At  the  same  time 
I  assert  the  authority  of  this  kingdom  over  the  colonies 
to  be  sovereign  and  supreme  in  every  circumstance  of 
government  and  legislation  whatsoever.  .  .  .  Taxation 


90     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,   ca.  xi, 

is  no  part  of  the  governing  or  legislative  power.  The 
taxes  are  a  voluntary  gift  and  grant  of  the  Commons 
alone.  In  legislation  the  three  estates  of  the  realm  are 
alike  concerned  ;  but  the  concurrence  of  the  peers  and 
the  Crown  to  a  tax  is  only  necessary  to  close  with  the 
form  of  a  law.  The  gift  and  grant  is  of  the  Commons 
alone.  .  .  .  The  distinction  between  legislation  and 
taxation  is  essentially  necessary  to  liberty.  .  .  .  The  Com- 
mons of  America,  represented  in  their  several  Assem- 
blies, have  ever  been  in  possession  of  the  exercise  of  this, 
their  constitutional  right  of  giving  and  granting  their 
own  money.  They  would  have  been  slaves  if  they  had 
not  enjoyed  it.  At  the  same  time  this  kingdom,  as  the 
supreme  governing  and  legislative  power,  has  always 
bound  the  colonies  ...  in  everything,  except  that  of 
taking  their  money  out  of  their  pockets  without  their 
consent.'  In  his  reply  to  Grenville  he  reiterated  these 
principles  with  still  stronger  emphasis.  *  I  rejoice,'  he 
said,  *  that  America  has  resisted.  Three  millions  of 
people,  so  dead  to  all  the  feelings  of  liberty  as  volun- 
tarily to  submit  to  be  slaves,  would  have  been  fit  instru- 
ments to  make  slaves  of  the  rest.  ...  In  such  a  cause 
your  success  would  be  hazardous.  America,  if  she  fell, 
would  fall  like  the  strong  man  with  his  arms  around  the 
pillars  of  the  Constitution.  .  .  .  When  two  countries  are 
connected  together  like  England  and  her  colonies  with- 
out being  incorporated,  the  one  must  necessarily  govern ; 
the  greater  must  rule  the  less,  but  so  rule  it  as  not  to 
contradict  the  fundamental  principles  that  are  common 
to  both.  If  the  gentleman  does  not  understand  the  dif- 
ference between  external  and  internal  taxes,  I  cannot  help 
it ;  but  there  is  a  plain  distinction  between  taxes  levied 
for  the  purpose  of  raising  a  revenue,  and  duties  imposed 
for  the  regulation  of  trade  for  the  accommodation  of  the 
subject;  although  in  the  consequences  some  revenue 
might  incidentally  arise  from  the  latter.  .  .  .  I  will  be  bold 


CH.  xi.  ARGUMENTS   OF  PITT.  91 

to  affirm  that  the  profit  to  Great  Britain  from  the  trade 
of  the  colonies  through  all  its  branches  is  two  millions  a 
year.  This  is  the  fund  that  carried  you  triumphantly 
through  the  last  war.  .  .  .  This  is  the  price  America 
pays  for  her  protection.  ...  I  dare  not  say  how  much 
higher  these  profits  may  be  augmented.  .  .  .  The 
Americans  have  not  acted  in  all  things  with  prudence 
and  temper.  They  have  been  driven  to  madness  by 
injustice.  Will  you  punish  them  for  the  madness  you 
have  occasioned?  Rather  let  prudence  and  temper 
come  first  from  this  side.  I  will  undertake  for  America 
that  she  will  follow  the  example.  .  .  .  Upon  the  whole 
I  will  beg  leave  to  tell  the  House  what  is  really  my 
opinion.  It  is  that  the  Stamp  Act  should  be  repealed 
absolutely,  totally,  and  immediately ;  that  the  reason  for 
the  repeal  should  be  assigned,  because  it  was  founded 
on  an  erroneous  principle.  At  the  same  time  let  the 
sovereign  authority  of  this  country  over  the  colonies  be 
asserted  in  as  strong  terms  as  can  be  devised,  and  be 
made  to  extend  to  every  point  of  legislation  whatsoever  ; 
that  we  may  bind  their  trade,  confine  their  manufactures, 
and  exercise  every  power  whatsoever — except  that  of 
taking  their  money  out  of  their  pockets  without  their 
consent.' l 

These  views  were  defended  in  the  strongest  terms  by 
Lord  Camden,  who  pledged  his  great  legal  reputation 
to  the  doctrine  that  taxation  is  not  included  under  the 
general  right  of  legislation,  and  that  taxation  and  repre- 
sentation are  morally  inseparable.  *  This  position/  he 
very  rashly  affirmed,  '  is  founded  on  the  laws  of  nature ; 
nay,  more,  it  is  itself  an  eternal  law  of  nature.  For 

1  Chatham  Correspondence,  ii.  power  and  influence  which  Mr. 

863-372.    Eockingham  next  day  Pitt  has  whenever  he  takes  part 

wrote  to  the  King :  '  The  events  of  in  debate.'— Albemarle's  Life  of 

yesterday  in  the  House  of  Com-  Bockingham,  i.  270. 
mons  have  shown  the  amazing 


02     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CM.  xi. 

whatever  is  a  man's  own  is  absolutely  his  own.  No 
man  has  a  right  to  take  it  from  him  without  his  con- 
sent, either  expressed  by  himself  or  representative. 
Whoever  attempts  to  do  it  attempts  an  injury.  Who- 
ever does  it  commits  a  robbery.' l 

The  task  of  the  ministers  in  dealing  with  this  ques- 
tion was  extremely  difficult.  The  great  majority  of 
them  desired  ardently  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act ; 
but  the  wishes  of  the  King,  the  abstention  of  Pitt,  and 
the  divided  condition  of  parties  had  compelled  Rocking- 
ham  to  include  in  his  Government  Charles  Townshend, 
Barrington,  and  Northington,  who  were  all  strong  ad- 
vocates of  the  taxation  of  America,  and  Northington 
took  an  early  opportunity  of  delivering  an  invective 
against  the  colonies  which  seemed  specially  intended 
to  prolong  the  exasperation.  *  If  they  withdraw  alle- 
giance/ he  concluded,  '  you  must  withdraw  protection, 
and  then  the  little  State  of  Genoa  or  the  kingdom  of 
Sweden  may  soon  overrun  them.'  The  King  himself, 
though  he  was  prepared  to  see  the  Stamp  Act  altered 
in  some  of  its  provisions,  was  decidedly  hostile  to  the 
repeal.  When  the  measure  was  first  contemplated, 
two  partisans  of  Bute  came  to  the  King  offering  to 
resign  their  places,  as  they  meant  to  oppose  the  repeal, 
but  they  were  at  once  told  that  they  might  keep  their 
places  and  vote  as  they  pleased.  The  hint  was  taken, 
and  the  King's  friends  were  among  the  most  active, 
though  not  the  most  conspicuous,  opponents  of  the 
ministers.2  And  in  addition  to  all  these  difficulties  the 
ministers  had  to  deal  with  the  exasperation  which  was 
produced  in  Parliament  by  the  continual  outrages  and 
insults  to  which  all  who  represented  the  English  Govern- 
ment in  America  were  exposed. 


1  Parl.  Hist.  xvi.  178.  362,  365.    Albemarle's  Life  of 

*  Grenville  Papers,   iii.    353,       Rockingham. 


CH.  xi.  REFEAL   OF   THE   STAMP   ACT.  93 

Their  policy  consisted  of  two  parts.  They  asserted 
in  the  strongest  and  most  unrestricted  form  the  soye- 
reignty  of  the  British  Legislature,  first  of  all  by  resolu- 
tions and  then  by  a  Declaratory  Act  affirming  the  right 
of  Parliament  to  make  laws  binding  the  British  colonies 
'  in  all  cases  whatsoever/  and  condemning  as  unlawful 
the  votes  of  the  colonial  Assemblies  which  had  denied 
to  Parliament  the  right  of  taxing  them.  Side  by  side 
with  this  measure  they  brought  in  a  Bill  repealing  the 
Stamp  Act.1  It  was  advocated  both  in  its  preamble 
and  in  the  speeches  of  its  supporters  on  the  ground  of 
simple  expediency.  The  Stamp  Act  had  already  pro- 
duced evils  far  outweighing  any  benefits  that  could  flow 
from  it.  To  enforce  it  over  a  vast  and  thinly  populated 
country,  and  in  the  face  of  the  universal  and  vehement 
opposition  of  the  people,  had  proved  hitherto  impossible, 
and  would  always  be  difficult,  dangerous,  and  disastrous. 
It  might  produce  rebellion.  It  would  certainly  produce 
permanent  and  general  disaffection,  great  derangement 
of  commercial  relations,  a  smothered  resistance  which 
could  only  be  overcome  by  a  costly  and  extensive  system 
of  coercion.  It  could  not  be  wise  to  convert  the 
Americans  into  a  nation  of  rebels  who  were  only  wait- 
ing for  a  European  war  to  throw  off  their  allegiance. 
Yet  this  would  be  the  natural  and  almost  inevitable 
consequence  of  persisting  in  the  policy  of  Grenville. 
The  chief  interests  of  England  in  her  colonies  were 
commercial,  and  these  had  been  profoundly  injured  by 
the  Stamp  Act.  As  long  as  it  continued,  the  Ameri- 
cans were  resolved  to  make  it  their  main  effort  to 
abstain  as  much  as  possible  from  English  goods,  and 
the  English  commercial  classes  were  unanimous  in 
favour  of  the  repeal.  The  right  of  the  country  was 
affirmed  and  the  honour  of  Parliament  vindicated  by 


1  6  Geo.  III.  c.  11, 12. 


94  ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.      CH.  zi. 

the  Declaratory  Act.  It  now  remained  only — if  pos- 
sible without  idle  recrimination — to  pursue  the  course 
which  was  most  conducive  to  the  interests  of  England. 
And  that  course  was  plainly  to  retire  from  a  position 
which  had  become  utterly  untenable. 

The  debates  on  this  theme  were  among  the  fiercest 
and  longest  ever  known  in  Parliament.  The  former 
ministers  opposed  the  repeal  at  every  stage,  and  most 
of  those  who  were  under  the  direct  influence  of  the 
King  plotted  busily  against  it.  Nearly  a  dozen  mem- 
bers of  the  King's  household,  nearly  all  the  bishops, 
nearly  all  the  Scotch,  nearly  all  the  Tories  voted  against 
the  ministry,  and  in  the  very  agony  of  the  contest  Lord 
Strange  spread  abroad  the  report  that  he  had  heard 
from  the  King's  own  lips  that  the  King  was  opposed  to 
the  repeal.  Kockingham  acted  with  great  decision. 
He  insisted  on  accompanying  Lord  Strange  into  the 
King's  presence,  and  in  obtaining  from  the  King  a 
written  paper  stating  that  he  was  in  favour  of  the 
repeal  rather  than  the  enforcement  of  the  Act,  though 
he  would  have  preferred  its  modification  to  either  course. 
The  great  and  manifest  desire  of  the  commercial  classes 
throughout  England  had  much  weight ;  the  repeal  was 
carried  through  the  House  of  Commons,  brought  up  by 
no  less  than  200  members  to  the  Lords,  and  finally 
carried  amid  the  strongest  expressions  of  public  joy. 
Burke  described  it  as  '  an  event  that  caused  more 
universal  joy  throughout  the  British  dominions  than 
perhaps  any  other  that  can  be  remembered.' 1 

Of  these  two  measures  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act 
was  that  which  was  most  violently  denounced  at  the 
time;  but  the  Declaratory  Act,  which  passed  almost 
unopposed,  is  the  one  which  now  requires  defence.  It 


1  Albemarle's  Life  of  Rock-      314,321.  Annual  Register,  176S. 
foghorn,  i.   250,   292,  299-302,       Grenville  Papers,  iii.  353-370. 


CH.  xi.  THE   DECLARATORY   ACT.  95 

has  been  represented  as  the  source  of  all  the  calamities 
that  ensued,  for  as  long  as  the  right  of  Parliament  to 
tax  America  was  asserted,  the  liberty  of  the  colonies 
was  precarious.  I  have  already  stated  my  opinion  that 
no  just  blame  attaches  to  the  ministry  on  this  matter. 
It  would  no  doubt  have  been  better  if  the  question  of 
the  right  of  taxation  had  never  been  raised,  and  no  one 
asserted  this  more  constantly  than  Burke,  who  largely 
inspired  the  policy  of  the  Government.  But  the  minis- 
ters had  no  alternative.  Parliament  had  already  twice 
asserted  its  right  to  tax.  With  the  exception  of  Lord 
Camden,  the  first  legal  authorities  in  the  country  unani- 
mously maintained  it.  The  Americans  had  openly 
denied  it,  and  they  had  aggravated  their  denial  by 
treating  an  Act  of  Parliament  and  those  who  were 
appointed  to  administer  it  with  the  grossest  outrage. 
It  was  quite  impossible  that  Parliament  with  any  regard 
to  its  own  dignity  could  acquiesce  tamely  in  these  pro- 
ceedings. It  was  quite  impossible  that  a  weak  ministry, 
divided  on  this  very  question  and  undermined  by  the 
Court,  could  have  carried  the  repeal,  if  it  had  been  un- 
accompanied by  an  assertion  of  parliamentary  authority 
on  the  matter  that  was  in  dispute.  All  accounts  con- 
cur in  showing  that  the  proceedings  of  the  Americans 
had  produced  a  violent  and  very  natural  irritation,1  and 
every  mail  brought  news  which  was  only  too  well  fitted 
to  aggravate  it.  The  judgment  on  this  subject  of  Sir 
George  Savile,  who  was  one  of  the  most  sagacious 
members  of  the  Buckingham  party,  is  of  great  weight. 
In  a  letter  addressed  to  the  Americans  he  wrote :  '  You 

1  Thus  Shelburne  reported  to  Walpole  says :  *  As  the  accounts 

Pitt,  December  21,  1765.    *  The  from  America   grew  every  day 

prejudice  against  the  Americans  worse,  the  ministers,  who  at  first 

on  the  whole  seemed  very  great,  were  inclined  to  repeal  the  Act, 

and  no  very  decided  opinion  in  were  borne  down  by  the  flagrancy 

favour  of  the  ministry.' — Chat-  of  the  provocation.' — Memoirs  of 

ham    Correspondence,    ii.    355.  George  III.  ii.  221. 


96     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

should  know  that  the  great  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the 
ministers  has  been  unhappily  thrown  in  by  yourselves 
— I  mean  the  intemperate  proceedings  of  various  ranks 
of  people  on  your  side  the  water — and  that  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  repeal  would  have  been  nothing  if  you 
had  not  by  your  violence  in  word  and  action  awakened 
the  honour  of  Parliament,  and  thereby  involved  every 
friend  of  the  repeal  in  the  imputation  of  betraying  the 
dignity  of  Parliament.  This  is  so  true  that  the  Act 
would  certainly  not  have  been  repealed  if  men's  minds 
had  not  been  in  some  measure  satisfied  with  the  Decla- 
ration of  Right/ l 

Franklin,  in  the  very  remarkable  evidence  which  he 
at  this  time  gave  before  a  committee  of  the  House  of 
Commons  about  the  political  condition  and  prospects  of 
America,  having  been  asked  whether  he  thought  the 
Americans  would  be  contented  with  a  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act  even  if  it  were  accompanied  by  an  assertion 
of  the  right  of  Parliament  to  tax  them,  answered,  '  I 
think  the  resolutions  of  right  will  give  them  very  little 
concern,  if  they  are  never  attempted  to  be  carried  into 
practice.' 2  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  judg- 
ment was  a  just  one.  All  testimony  concurs  in  showing 
that  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  produced,  for  a  time 


1  Albemarle's   Life  of  Rock-  1778,  'that  with  respect  to  the 

ingham,  i.  305.     Charles  Fox,  in  Declaratory  Act,  any  reason  that 

a  speech  which  he  made  on  De-  ever  weighed  with  him  in  favour 

cember  10,  1777,  fully  corrobo-  of  that  Act  was  to  obtain  the 

rated  this  assertion,  and  declared  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act.     Many 

that  '  it  was  not  the  inclination  people  of  high  principles  would 

of  Lord  Eockingham,   but   the  never,  in  his  opinion,  have  been 

necessity  of  his  situation,  which  brought  to  repeal  the  Stamp  Act 

was  the  cause  of  the  Declaratory  without  it ;  the  number  of  those 

Act.' — Parl.  Hist.  xix.  563.    The  who  opposed  that  repeal,  even  aa 

Duke  of  Eichmond,  who  on  all  it  was,  were  very  numerous.' — 

American  questions  was  one  of  Chatham     Correspondence,     iv. 

the  most  prominent  members  of  501,  502. 
the  Eockingham  party,  said  in  -  Franklin's  Works,  iv.  176. 


CH.  xi.  COMMERCIAL  KELAXATIONS.  97 

at  least,  a  complete  pacification  of  America.  As  Adams, 
who  was  watching  the  current  of  American  feeling  with 
great  keenness,  wrote,  *  The  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act 
has  hushed  into  silence  almost  every  popular  clamour, 
and  composed  every  wave  of  popular  disorder  into  a 
smooth  and  peaceful  calm.'  l 

In  addition  to  these  measures,  the  colonial  Go- 
vernors were  instructed  to  ask  the  Assemblies  to  com- 
pensate those  whose  property  had  been  destroyed  in 
the  late  riots.  An  Act  was  carried  indemnifying  those 
who  had  violated  the  Stamp  Act,  and  some  considerable 
changes  were  made  in  that  commercial  system  which 
was  by  far  the  most  real  of  the  grievances  of  America. 
It  was  impossible  for  a  Government  which  had  just  won 
a  great  victory  for  the  Americans,  by  the  assistance  of 
the  commercial  and  manufacturing  classes,  to  touch 
either  the  laws  prohibiting  some  of  the  chief  forms  of 
manufacture  in  the  colonies  or  the  general  principle  of 
colonial  monopoly ;  and  the  favourite  argument  of  the 
opponents  of  the  Stamp  Act  was  that  the  trade  advan- 
tages arising  from  that  monopoly  were  the  real  contri- 
bution of  America  to  the  defence  and  prosperity  of  the 
Empire.  Within  these  limits,  however,  much  remained 

1  Adams'   Diary.      Works,  ii.  in  1774  on  the  American  qaes- 

203.      Adams'  biographer    says  tion,  speaking  of  the  repeal  of 

the  colonists  '  received  the  repeal  the  Stamp  Act,  said :  '  I  am  bold 

of  the  Stamp  Act  with  transports  to  say,   so   sudden  a  calm,  re- 

of  joy,  and  disregarded  the  mere  covered  after  so  violent  a  storm, 

empty    declaration    of    a  right  is  without  parallel  in  history.' 

which  they  flattered  themselves  The  testimony  of  Hutchinson  is 

was  never  to  be  exercised.     The  equally  decisive.  '  The  Act  which 

spirit  of  resistance  immediately  accompanied  it  [the  repeal  of  the 

subsided,   and    a    general  tran-  Stamp  Act]  with  the  title  of  "  Se- 

quillity  prevailed  until  the  pro-  curing  the  Dependency  of   the 

ject    of    levying    internal  taxes  Colonies,"  caused  no  allay  of  the 

upon  the  people  of  the  colonies  joy,  and  was  considered  as  mere 

by  Act   of  Parliament  was  re-  naked  form.'     Hist,  of  Massa- 

Burned  in  England.'    Ibid.  i.  81,  chusetts  Bay,  p.  147. 
82.    Burke  in  his  great  speech 


ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

to  be  done.  The  restrictions  imposed  upon  the  trade 
with  the  French  West  India  islands,  and  especially  upon 
the  importation  of  molasses,  had  been,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  main  practical  grievance  of  the  commercial  system. 
The  prohibition  of  manufactures,  however  unreasonable 
and  unjust,  was  of  no  serious  consequence  to  a  country 
where  agriculture,  fisheries,  and  commerce  were  natu- 
rally the  most  lucrative  forms  of  enterprise;  but  an 
abundant  supply  of  molasses  was  essential  to  the  great 
distilleries  at  Boston.  The  duty  when  it  was  Is.  a 
gallon  had  been  a  mere  dead  letter.  When  Grenville 
reduced  it  to  6d.  a  gallon,  the  most  violent  measures 
had  still  been  unable  to  suppress  a  great  smuggling 
trade,  and  the  duty  only  yielded  2,OOOZ.  a  year.  The 
Rockingham  Government  lowered  it  to  Id.,  and  this 
small  duty,  being  no  longer  a  grievance,  produced  no 
less  than  17,OOOZ.  The  duties  imposed  on  coffee  and 
pimento  from  the  British  plantations,  and  on  foreign 
cambrics  and  lawns,  imported  into  America,  were  at 
the  same  time  lowered ;  and  the  British  West  India 
islands,  in  whose  favour  the  colonial  trade  with  the 
French  islands  had  been  restricted,  were  compensated  by 
the  opening  in  them  of  some  free  ports  and  by  some 
other  commercial  favours.1 

'  The  Americans/  said  Chatham  a  few  years  later, 
when  describing  this  period,  '  had  almost  forgot,  in  their 
excess  of  gratitude  for  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  any 
interest  but  that  of  the  mother  country  ;  there  seemed 
an  emulation  among  the  different  provinces  who  should 
be  most  dutiful  and  forward  in  their  expressions  of 
loyalty/  2  The  Rockingham  Ministry  had  undoubtedly, 
under  circumstances  of  very  great  difficulty,  restored 
confidence  to  America,  and  concluded  for  the  present  a 


1  Macpherson's      AnnaU     of         *  Thackeray's  Life  of  Chat 
Commerce,  iii.  446,  447.  ham,  ii.  263. 


CH.  xi.  THE   FEELING   IN  AMERICA.  99 

contest  which  would  probably  have  ended  in  a  war.  In 
most  of  the  provincial  Assemblies  and  in  many  public 
meetings  of  citizens,  addresses  of  thanks  were  carried 
to  the  King,  to  the  Ministry,  to  Pitt,  Camden,  and 
Barre ;  and  in  more  than  one  province  statues  were 
raised  to  the  King  and  to  Pitt.  The  shrewd  Phila- 
delphian  Quakers  passed  a  characteristic  resolution, 
*  that  to  demonstrate  our  zeal  to  Great  Britain,  and  our 
gratitude  for  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  each  of  us 
will  on  the  4th  of  June  next,  being  the  birthday  of  our 
gracious  Sovereign,  dress  ourselves  in  a  new  suit  of  the 
manufactures  of  England,  and  give  what  homespun 
clothes  we  have  to  the  poor.' l  A  feeling  of  real  and 
genuine  loyalty  to  the  mother-country  appears  to  have 
at  this  time  existed  in  the  colonies,  though  it  required 
much  skill  to  maintain  it. 

The  Americans  had  in  truth  won  a  great  victory, 
which  inspired  them  with  unbounded  confidence  in  their 
strength.  They  had  gone  through  all  the  excitement 
of  a  violent  and  brilliantly  successful  political  campaign ; 
they  had  realised  for  a  time  the  union  which  appeared 
formerly  so  chimerical ;  they  had  found  their  natural 
leaders  in  the  struggle,  and  had  discovered  the  weakness 
of  the  mother  country.  Many  writers  and  speakers  had 
arisen  who  had  learnt  the  lesson  that  a  defiance  of  Eng- 
lish authority  was  one  of  the  easiest  and  safest  paths  to 
popular  favour,  and  the  speeches  of  Pitt  had  kindled  a 
fierce  enthusiasm  of  liberty  through  the  colonies.  There 
was  no  want  of  men  who  regretted  that  the  agitation 
had  ceased,  who  would  gladly  have  pressed  on  the 
struggle  to  new  issues,  and  who  were  ready  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  first  occasion  for  quarrel.  It  was  not 
easy  for  an  ambitious  man  in  these  distant  colonies  to 
make  his  name  known  to  the  world ;  but  if  events  ever 

1  Annual  Register,  1766,  p.  114. 


100          ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.      CH.  XT. 

led  to  a  collision,  a  great  field  of  ambition  would 
be  suddenly  opened.  Besides  this,  -principles  of  a 
far-reaching  and  revolutionary  character  had  become 
familiar  to  the  people.  It  is  a  dangerous  thing  when 
nations  begin  to  scrutinise  too  closely  the  foundations 
of  political  authority,  the  possible  results  to  which  poli- 
tical principles  may  logically  lead,  the  exact  limits  by 
which  the  different  powers  of  a  heterogeneous  and  pre- 
scriptive government  must  be  confined.  The  theory  of 
English  lawyers  that  a  Parliament  in  which  the  Ameri- 
cans were  unrepresented  might  fetter  their  commerce 
in  all  its  parts,  and  exact  in  taxation  the  last  shilling 
of  their  fortunes,  and  that  their  whole  representative 
system  existed  only  by  the  indulgence  of  England, 
would,  if  fully  acted  on,  have  reduced  the  colonies  to 
absolute  slavery.  On  the  other  hand,  Otis  and  other 
agitators  were  vehemently  urging  that  the  principles  of 
Chatham  and  Camden  would  authorise  the  Americans 
to  repudiate  all  parliamentary  restrictions  on  American 
trade.  No  objection  seems  indeed  to  have  been  felt  to 
the  bounties  which  England  conferred  upon  it,  or  to  the 
protection  of  their  coasts  by  English  vessels  ;  but  in  all 
other  respects  parliamentary  interference  was  profoundly 
disliked.  Lawyers  had  assumed  during  the  late  troubles 
a  great  prominence  in  colonial  politics,  and  a  litigious, 
captious,  and  defining  spirit  was  abroad. 

It  was  noticed  that  in  the  addresses  to  the  King 
and  to  the  Government  thanking  them  for  the  repeal  of 
the  Stamp  Act,  as  little  as  possible  was  said  about  the 
supremacy  of  Parliament,  and  in  the  most  exuberant 
moments  of  colonial  gratitude  there  were  no  signs  of 
any  disposition,  in  any  province,  to  undertake,  under 
proper  guarantees  and  limitation,  the  task  of  supporting 
English  troops  stationed  in  America.  Had  the  colonies 
after  the  Peace  of  Paris  been  willing  to  contribute  thia 
small  service  to  the  support  of  the  Empire,  the  constitu- 


CH.  xi.  GOVERNOR  BERNARD.  101 

tional  question  might  never  have  been  raised ;  had  they 
now  offered  to  do  so,  it  would  probably  never  have  been 
revived.  The  requisitions  to  the  colonial  Assemblies  to 
compensate  the  sufferers  in  the  late  riots  were  very  un- 
popular. In  one  or  two  provinces  the  money  was,  it  is 
true,  frankly  and  promptly  voted ;  but  in  most  cases 
there  was  much  delay.  Massachusetts,  where  the  most 
scandalous  riots  took  place,  rebelled  violently  against 
the  too  peremptory  terms  of  the  requisition ;  refused  at 
first  to  pass  any  vote  of  compensation  ;  yielded  at  last, 
after  a  long  delay,  and  by  a  small  majority,  but  accom- 
panied its  grant  by  a  clause  indemnifying  the  rioters, 
which  was  afterwards  annulled  by  the  King. 

Bernard,  who  since  the  beginning  of  1760  had  been 
Governor  of  Massachusetts,  had  of  late  become  extremely 
unpopular,  and  his  name  has  been  pursued  with  untiring 
virulence  to  the  present  day.  His  letters  are  those  of  an 
honest  and  rather  able,  but  injudicious  and  disputatious 
man,  who  was  trying,  under  circumstances  of  extreme 
difficulty,  to  do  his  duty  both  to  the  Government  and 
the  people,  but  who  was  profoundly  discontented  with 
the  constitution  of  the  province.  In  1763  and  1764  he 
exerted  all  his  influence  to  procure  the  lowering  or  the 
abolition  of  the  duties  in  the  Sugar  Act,  and  in  general 
a  larger  amount  of  free  trade  for  the  colonies.  In 
1765  he  opposed  the  Stamp  Act  as  inexpedient, 
though  he  maintained  that  Parliament  had  the  right  of 
taxing  the  colonies,  provided  those  taxes  were  exclu- 
sively applied  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  paid  them. 
Up  to  this  time  he  appears  to  have  been  generally  liked 
and  esteemed ; l  but  he  was  now  called  upon  to  take 
the  most  prominent  part  in  maintaining  the  policy  of 
the  English  Government,  and  his  letters  give  a  vivid 
picture  of  the  difficulties  he  encountered.  He  describes 

1  See  Hutchinson,  p.  254. 


102    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  II. 

himself  as  placed '  in  the  midsfc  of  those  who  first  stirred 
up  these  disturbances,  without  a  force  to  protect  my 
person,  without  a  .council  to  advise  me,  watched  by  every 
eye,  and  misrepresented  or  condemned  for  everything  I 
do  on  the  King's  behalf.'  He  laments  that  the  govern- 
ments of  the  colonies  '  were  weak  and  impotent  to  an 
amazing  degree,'  that  '  the  governors  and  officers  of  the 
Crown  were  in  several  of  the  chief  provinces  entirely 
dependent  upon  the  people  for  subsistence,'  that  '  the 
persons  of  the  governors  and  Crown  officers  are  quite 
defenceless  and  exposed  to  the  violence  of  the  people, 
without  any  possible  resort  for  protection,'  and  he  con- 
tinually urged  that  as  long  as  the  Council,  which  was 
the  natural  support  of  the  Executive,  was  elected 
annually  by  the  Assembly,  and  as  long  as  almost  all 
the  civil  officers  were  mainly  dependent  for  their  salaries 
on  an  annual  vote  of  the  Assembly,  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  enforce  in  Massachusetts  any  unpopular  law  or 
to  punish  any  outrage  which  was  supported  by  popular 
favour.  It  was  his  leading  doctrine  that  if  British  rule 
was  to  be  perpetuated  in  America,  and  if  a  period  of 
complete  anarchy  was  to  be  averted,  it  was  necessary  to 
put  an  end  to  the  obscurity  which  rested  upon  the  rela- 
tions of  the  colonies  to  the  Home  Government ;  to 
establish  finally  and  decisively  the  legislative  ascendency 
of  the  British  Parliament,  and  to  remodel  the  constitu- 
tions of  the  colonies  on  a  uniform  type.  He  proposed 
that  the  Assemblies  should,  as  at  present,  remain  com- 
pletely representative  ;  but  that  the  democratic  element 
in  the  Constitution  should  be  always  balanced  by  a 
council  consisting  of  a  kind  of  life  peers,  appointed 
directly  by  the  King,  and  that  there  should  be  a  fixed 
civil  list  from  which  the  King's  officers  should  derive  a 
certain  provision.  As  such  changes  were  wholly  in- 
compatible with  the  charters  of  the  more  democratic 
colonies,  he  proposed  that  American  representatives 


UH.  xi.  GOVERNOR   BERNARD.  103 

should  be  temporarily  summoned  to  the  British  Parlia- 
ment, and  that  Parliament  should  then  authoritatively 
settle  the  colonial  system.1 

These  views  were  of  course  at  first  only  communi- 
cated confidentially  to  the  Government,  but  in  the  open 
acts  of  Bernard  there  was  much  that  was  offensive  to 
the  people.  His  addresses  were  often  very  injudicious; 
he  had  a  bad  habit  of  entering  into  elaborate  arguments 
with  the  Assembly,  and  he  was  accused  of  straining  the 
small  amount  of  prerogative  which  he  possessed.  The 
Assembly,  shortly  after  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act. 
showed  its  gratitude  by  electing  Otis,  the  most  violent 
assailant  of  the  whole  legislative  authority  of  England, 
as  its  Speaker,  and  Bernard  negatived  the  choice.  The 
Assembly,  contrary  to  immemorial  usage,  refused  to 
elect  Hutchinson,  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  Oliver,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Province,  and  the  other  chief  officers  of 
the  Crown,  members  of  the  Council.  Bernard  remon- 
strated strongly  against  the  exclusion  ;  he  himself 
negatived  six  '  friends  of  the  people '  who  had  been 
elected,  and  he  countenanced  a  claim  of  Hutchinson  to 
take  his  seat  in  his  capacity  of  Lieutenant-Governor 
among  the  councillors.  The  relations  between  the 
Executive  and  the  Assembly  were  thus  extremely  tense, 
while  the  inhabitants  of  Boston  were  very  naturally  and 
very  pardonably  intoxicated  with  the  triumph  they  had 
obtained.  The  little  town,  which  was  probably  hardly 
known  even  by  name  in  Europe  outside  commercial 
circles,  had  bearded  the  Government  of  England,  and 
it  was  deeply  sensible  of  the  heroism  it  had  displayed. 
The  rioters  were  never  punished,  but  were,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  objects  of  general  sympathy,  and  the  '  sons  of 
liberty*  resolved  to  meet  annually  to  commemorate 

1  He  proposed  that  thirty  re-      fifteen  from  the  islands.— Letter* 
presentatives  should  be  sent  from      of  George  Bernard,  p.  34. 
the    continental     colonies,    and 

9 


104    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  n. 

their  resistance  to  the  Stamp  Act,  and  to  express  their 
admiration  for  one  another.  Attempts  to  enforce  the 
revenue  Acts  were  continually  resisted.  It  was  ob- 
served that  the  phrase,  'No  representation,  no  taxa- 
tion ! '  which  had  been  the  popular  watch-cry,  was  be- 
ginning to  be  replaced  by  the  phrase,  '  No  representa- 
tion, no  legislation  ! '  and  many  '  patriots  '  whose  names 
are  emblazoned  in  American  history,  with  unbounded 
applause  and  with  the  most  perfect  security  were  hurl- 
ing highly  rhetorical  defiances  at  the  British  Govern- 
ment. 

The  clause  in  the  Mutiny  Act  requiring  the  colonists 
to  supply  English  troops  with  some  of  the  first  necessa- 
ries of  life,  was  another  grievance.  Boston,  as  usual, 
disputed  it  at  every  point  with  the  Governor ;  and  New 
York  positively  refused  to  obey.  In  a  very  able  book 
called  '  The  Farmer's  Letters,'  written  by  a  lawyer 
named  Dickinson,  which  appeared  about  this  time,  it 
was  maintained  that  if  the  British  Legislature  has  the 
right  of  ordering  the  colonies  to  provide  a  single  article 
for  British  troops,  it  has  a  right  to  tax :  *  An  Act  of 
Parliament  commanding  to  do  a  certain  thing,  if  it  has 
any  validity,  is  a  tax  upon  us  for  the  expense  that 
accrues  in  complying  with  it.' 

It  is  evident  that  great  wisdom,  moderation,  and 
tact  were  needed  if  healthy  relations  were  to  be  estab- 
lished between  England  and  her  colonies,  and  unfortu- 
nately these  qualities  were  conspicuously  absent  from 
English  councils.  The  downfall  of  the  Eockingham 
Ministry,  and  the  formation  of  a  ministry  of  which 
Grafton  was  the  nominal  and  Pitt  the  real  head,  seemed 
on  the  whole  a  favourable  event.  The  influence  and 
popularity  of  Pitt  were  even  greater  in  America  than 
in  England.  His  acceptance  of  the  title  of  Earl  of 
Chatham,  which  injured  him  so  deeply  in  English 
opinion,  was  a  matter  of  indifference  to  the  colonists ; 


en.  xi.  GROWING  DIFFICULTIES  IN  ENGLAND.  105 

and  he  possessed  far  beyond  all  other  English  states- 
men the  power  of  attracting  or  conciliating  great  bodies 
of  men,  and  firing  them  with  the  enthusiasm  of  loyalty 
or  patriotism.  Camden,  who  next  to  Chatham  was 
the  chief  English  advocate  of  the  colonial  cause,  was 
Chancellor.  Conway,  who  moved  the  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act,  was  one  of  the  Secretaries  of  State ;  and 
Shelburne,  who  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine  was  placed 
over  American  affairs,  had  on  the  question  of  taxing 
America  been  on  the  side  of  Chatham  and  Camden. 
Illness,  however,  speedily  withdrew  Chatham  from 
public  affairs,  and  in  the  scene  of  anarchy  which  ensued 
it  was  left  for  the  strongest  man  to  seize  the  helm. 
Unfortunately,  in  the  absence  of  Chatham,  that  man 
was  unquestionably  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
Charles  Townshend. 

From  this  time  the  English  government  of  America 
is  little  more  than  a  series  of  deplorable  blunders.  A 
feeling  of  great  irritation  against  the  colonies  had  begun 
to  prevail  in  English  political  circles.  The  Court  party 
continually  repeated  that  England  had  been  humiliated 
by  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act.1  Grenville  maintained 
that  if  that  Act  had  been  enforced  with  common  firm- 
ness, the  stamp  duties  in  America  would  soon  have 
been  collected  with  as  little  difficulty  as  the  land  tax  in 
England ;  and  he  pointed  to  the  recent  news  as  a  con- 
clusive proof  that  the  policy  of  conciliation  had  failed ; 
and  that  through  the  vacillation  or  encouragement  of 
English  statesmen,  the  spirit  of  rebellion  and  of  anarchy 
was  steadily  growing  beyond  the  Atlantic.  There  was 
a  general  feeling  that  it  was  perfectly  equitable  that 
America  should  support  an  army  for  her  own  defence, 

1  « The  whole  body  of  courtiers  humiliated  state  until  something 

drove  him  [Charles  Townshend]  of  the  kind  should  be  done.' — 

onwards.    They  always  talked  as  Burke's    Speech    on    American 

if  the  King  stood  in  a   sort  of  Taxation  (1774). 


106    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  n. 

and  for  that  of  the  neighbouring  islands  ;  and  also,  that 
this  had  become  a  matter  of  vital  and  pressing  import- 
ance to  the  British  Empire.  The  political  correspond- 
ence of  the  time  teems  with  intimations  of  the  in- 
cessant activity  with  which  France  and  Spain  were 
intriguing  to  regain  the  position  they  had  lost  in  the 
late  war.  The  dispute  about  the  Manilla  ransom  and 
the  annexation  of  Corsica  were  the  most  conspicuous, 
but  they  were  not  the  most  significant,  signs  of  the 
attitude  of  those  Powers.  Plans  for  the  invasion  of 
England  had  been  carefully  elaborated.  French  spies 
had  surveyed  the  English  coast.  In  1764  and  1765  an 
agent  of  Choiseul  had  minutely  studied  the  American 
colonies,  and  had  reported  to  his  master  that  the 
English  troops  were  so  few  and  scattered  that  they 
could  be  of  no  real  service,  and  that  democratic  and 
provincial  jealousy  had  prevented  the  erection  of  a 
single  citadel  in  all  New  England.1  The  King  fully 
agreed  with  his  wisest  ministers  that  the  army  was 
wholly  insufficient  to  protect  the  Empire,  and  the 
scheme  of  Chatham  for  averting  the  rapidly  growing 
dangers  from  France  by  a  new  alliance  with  Prussia 
had  signally  failed.  England  was  beginning  to  learn 
the  lesson  that  in  the  crisis  of  her  fate  she  could  rely 
on  herself  alone,  and  that  in  political  life  gratitude  is 
of  all  ties  the  frailest  and  the  most  precarious.  At  the 
same  time,  the  country  gentlemen  who  remembered  the 
days  of  Walpole,  when  England  was  more  prosperous 
though  less  great,  murmured  at  the  heavy  land  tax  in 
time  of  peace,  and  had  begun  to  complain  bitterly  that 
the  whole  expense  of  the  defence  of  wealthy  colonies 
was  thrown  on  them.  The  factious  vote,  in  which  the 
partisans  of  Grenville  and  most  of  the  partisans  of 
Rockingham,  with  the  notable  exception  of  Burke,  con- 

1  Bancroft,  iii.  28.    Fitzmaurice's  Life  of  Shelburne,  ii.  3-5. 


CH  xi.  TOWNSHEND'S  DECLARATION.  107 

cm-red,  which  reduced  the  land  tax  proposed  by  the 
Government  from  4s.  to  3s.  in  the  pound,  made  it 
necessary  to  seek  some  other  source  of  revenue.1  Shel- 
burne  himself  fully  adopted  the  view  that  America 
should  support  her  own  army,  and  he  imagined  that  if 
it  were  reduced  to  the  smallest  proportions  the  required 
sum  might  be  gradually  raised  by  enforcing  strictly  the 
quit  rents  of  the  Crown,  which  appear  to  have  fallen 
into  very  general  neglect,  and  by  turning  the  grants  of 
land  to  real  benefit.2  Townshend,  however,  had  other 
schemes,  and  he  lost  little  time  in  forcing  them  upon 
Parliament. 

On  January  26,  1767,  in  a  debate  on  the  army, 
George  Grenville  moved  that  America,  like  Ireland, 
should  support  an  establishment  of  her  own ;  and  in 
the  course  of  the  discussion  which  followed,  Townshend 
took  occasion  to  declare  himself  a  firm  advocate  of  the 
principle  of  the  Stamp  Act.  He  described  the  distinc- 
tion between  external  and  internal  taxes  as  ridiculous, 
in  the  opinion  of  every  one  except  the  Americans ;  and 
he  pledged  himself  to  find  a  revenue  in  America  nearly 
sufficient  for  the  purposes  that  were  required.3  His 
colleagues  listened  in  blank  astonishment  to  a  pledge 
which  was  perfectly  unauthorised  by  the  Cabinet,  and 
indeed  contrary  to  the  known  decision  of  all  its  mem- 


1  See  vol.  iii.  p.  301.  burne,  ii.  35. 

2  '  The  forming  of  an  American  3  There  are   two  accounts   of 
fund  to  support   the  exigencies  this  speech  :  the  first  in  a  letter 
of  government  in  the  same  man-  from  Lord  Charlemont  to  Flood 
ner  as  is  done  in  Ireland,  is  what  (Jan.  29),  Chatham  Correspond- 
is  so  highly  reasonable   that  it  ence,  iii.  178,  179 ;  the  other  in 
must  take  place  sooner  or  later.  a  letter  from  Shelburne  to  Chat- 
The  most  obvious  manner  of  lay-  ham  (Feb.  1),  Ibid.  iii.  182-188. 
ing  a  foundation  for  such  a  fund  See,  too,  Grenville  Papers,   iv 
seems  to  be  by  taking  proper  care  211,  222,  and  the  extracts  from 
of  the  quit  lands,  and  by  turning  the  Duke  of  Graf  ton's  Memoirs 
the  grants  of  land  to  real  benefit.'  in  Lord  Stanhope's  History,  v» 
— Fitzmaurice's  Life    of    Shel-  App.  xvii.  xviii. 


108    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  xi. 

bers ;  but,  as  the  Duke  of  Grafton  afterwards  wrote,  no 
one  in  the  ministry  had  sufficient  authority  in  the 
absence  of  Chatham  to  advise  the  dismissal  of  Towns- 
hend,  and  this  measure  alone  could  have  arrested  his 
policy.  Shelburne,  who  was  the  official  chief  of  the 
colonies,  wrote  to  Chatham,  who  was  then  an  almost 
helpless  invalid,  relating  the  circumstances  and  express- 
ing his  complete  ignorance  of  the  intentions  of  his  col- 
league. The  news  had  just  arrived  that  New  York  had 
openly  repudiated  an  Act  of  Parliament  by  refusing  to 
furnish  troops  with  the  first  necessaries  of  life ;  and  it 
produced  an  indignation  in  Parliament  which  Chatham 
himself  appears  fully  to  have  shared.  'America,'  he 
wrote  confidentially  to  Shelburne,  'affords  a  gloomy 
prospect.  A  spirit  of  infatuation  has  taken  possession 
of  New  York.  Their  disobedience  to  the  Mutiny  Act 
will  justly  create  a  great  ferment  here,  open  a  fair  field 
to  the  arraigners  of  America,  and  leave  no  room  to  any 
to  say  a  word  in  their  defence.  I  foresee  confusion  will 
ensue.  The  petition  of  the  merchants  of  New  York  is 
highly  improper ;  .  .  .  .  they  are  doing  the  work  of 
their  worst  enemies  themselves.  The  torrent  of  in- 
dignation in  Parliament  will,  I  apprehend,  become 
irresistible/ *  In  a  letter  written  a  few  days  later  he 
says,  *  The  advices  from  America  afford  unpleasiiig 
views.  New  York  has  drunk  the  deepest  of  the  baneful 
cup  of  infatuation,  but  none  seem  to  be  quite  sober  and 
in  full  possession  of  reason.  It  is  a  literal  truth  to  say 
that  the  Stamp  Act  of  most  unhappy  memory  has 
frightened  those  irritable  and  umbrageous  people  quite 
out  of  their  senses.' 2  Letters  from  colonial  governors 
painted  the  state  of  feeling  in  the  darkest  colours.  At 
every  election,  in  the  bestowal  of  every  kind  of  popular 
favour,  to  have  opposed  parliamentary  authority  in 

1  Chatham  Correspondence,  iii.  188,  189.        2  Ibid.  p.  193. 


en.  xi.  REPORTS   FROM   AMERICA.  109 

America  was  now  the  first  title  to  success;  to  Lave 
supported  it,  the  most  fatal  of  disqualifications.  The 
pulpit,  the  press,  the  lawyers,  the  '  sons  of  liberty ' — 
all  those  classes  who  subsist  or  flourish  by  popularity — 
were  busy  in  inflaming  the  jealousy  against  England, 
and  in  extending  the  field  of  conflict.  There  was  a 
general  concurrence  of  opinion  among  American  officials 
that,  even  apart  from  the  necessity  of  providing  for  the 
defence  of  the  colonies,  it  was  indispensable,  if  any  Act 
of  Parliament  was  henceforth  to  be  obeyed,  that  a  small 
army  should  be  permanently  established  in  America, 
and  that  the  Executive  should  be  strengthened  by 
making  at  least  the  governor,  who  represented  the 
English  Crown,  and  the  judges,  who  represented  English 
law,  independent  of  the  favour  of  the  Assemblies.  It 
is  remarkable  that  among  the  officials  who  advocated 
these  views  was  the  son  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  who  had 
been  appointed  Crown  Governor  of  New  Jersey.  It  was 
urged,  too,  that  the  more  democratic  constitutions 
among  the  colonies  must  be  remodelled  ;  that,  while  the 
Assembly  should  always  be  the  legitimate  and  un- 
fettered representative  of  the  people,  the  Council  must 
always  be  chosen  by  the  Governor. 

Very  strong  arguments  might  be  urged  in  favour  of 
these  changes  ;  but  there  was  one  still  stronger  against 
them — that  it  was  absolutely  impossible  to  effect  them. 
On  May  13,  1767,  however,  when  Chatham  was  com- 
pletely incapacitated,  and  when  all  other  statesmen  had 
sunk  before  the  ascendency  of  Townshend,  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  brought  in  his  measure.  With  that 
brilliancy  of  eloquence  which  never  failed  to  charm  the 
House,  he  dilated  upon  the  spirit  of  insubordination 
that  was  growing  up  in  all  the  colonies,  upon  the  open 
defiance  of  an  Act  of  Parliament  by  New  York,  and 
upon  the  absolute  necessity  of  asserting  with  dignity 
and  decision  the  legal  ascendency  of  Parliament.  The 


110    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  xi. 

measures  which  he  ultimately  brought  forward  and 
carried  were  of  three  kinds :  By  one  Act  of  Parliament 
the  legislative  functions  of  the  New  York  Assembly 
were  suspended,  and  the  Governor  was  forbidden  to  give 
his  sanction  to  any  local  law  in  that  province  till  the 
terms  of  the  Mutiny  Act  had  been  complied  with.1  By 
another  Act  a  Board  of  Commissioners  of  the  Customs 
with  large  powers  was  established  in  America  for  the 
purpose  of  superintending  the  execution  of  the  laws 
relating  to  trade.2  By  a  third  Act  the  proposal  of 
taxing  America  was  resumed.  Townshend  explained 
that  the  distinction  between  internal  and  external 
taxation  was  in  his  eyes  entirely  worthless ;  but  in  the 
discussions  on  the  Stamp  Act  the  Americans  had  taken 
their  stand  upon  it.  They  had  represented  it  as  tran- 
scendently  important,  and  had  professed  to  be  quite 
willing  that  Parliament  should  regulate  their  trade  by 
duties,  provided  it  raised  no  internal  revenue.  This 
distinction  Townshend  said  he  would  observe.  He  would 
raise  a  revenue,  but  he  would  do  so  only  by  a  port  duty 
imposed  upon  glass,  red  and  white  lead,  painters' 
colours,  paper,  and  tea,  imported  into  the  colonies.  The 
charge  on  the  last-named  article  was  to  be  3d.  in  the 
pound.  The  whole  annual  revenue  expected  from  these 
duties  amounted  to  less  than40,OOOL,3  and  it  was  to  be 
employed  in  giving  a  civil  list  to  the  Crown.  Out  of 
that  civil  list,  salaries  were  to  be  paid  to  the  governors 
and  judges  in  America ;  and  in  the  very  improbable 
event  of  there  being  any  surplus,  it  was  to  go  towards 
defraying  the  expense  of  protecting  the  colonies.  In 
order  to  assist  in  the  enforcement  of  the  law,  writs  of 
assistance  were  formally  legalised.  Coffee  and  cocoa 
exported  from  England  to  the  colonies  were  at  the  same 


1  7  Geo.  III.  c.  59.  *  Walpole's  Memoirs  of  George 

2  Ibid.  c.  41.  III.  iii.  28. 


CH.  xi.  REVIEW   OF   THE   CONTROVERSY.  Ill 

time  freed  from  the  duty  which  they  had  previously  paid 
on  importation  into  England.  Tea  exported  to  the 
colonies  obtained  a  similar  indulgence  for  five  years, 
but  the  drawback  on  the  export  of  china  earthenware  to 
America  ,was  withdrawn.1 

It  is  a  strange  instance  of  the  fallibility  of  political 
foresight  if  Townshend  imagined  that  America  would 
acquiesce  in  these  measures,  that  England  possessed 
any  adequate  means  of  enforcing  them,  or  that  she  could 
a  second  time  recede  from  her  demands  and  yet  maintain 
her  authority  over  the  colonies.  It  is  mournful  to 
notice  how  the  field  of  controversy  had  widened  and 
deepened,  and  how  a  quarrel  which  might  at  one  time 
have  been  appeased  by  slight  mutual  concessions  was 
leading  inevitably  to  the  disruption  of  the  Empire. 
England  was  originally  quite  right  in  her  contention 
that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  colonies  to  contribute  some- 
thing to  the  support  of  the  army  which  defended  the 
unity  of  the  Empire.  She  was  quite  right  in  her  belief 
that  in  some  of  the  colonial  constitutions  the  Executive 
was  far  too  feeble,  that  the  line  which  divides  liberty 
from  anarchy  was  often  passed,  and  that  the  result  was 
profoundly  and  permanently  injurious  to  the  American 
character.  She  was  also,  I  think,  quite  right  in  ascrib- 
ing a  great  part  of  the  resistance  of  America  to  the 
disposition,  so  common  and  so  natural  in  dependencies, 
to  shrink  as  much  as  possible  from  any  expense  that 
could  possibly  be  thrown  on  the  mother  country,  and  in 
forming  a  very  low  estimate  of  the  character  and  motives 
of  a  large  proportion  of  those  ambitious  lawyers,  news- 
paper writers,  preachers,  and  pamphleteers  who,  in  New 
England  at  least,  were  labouring  with  untiring  assiduity 
to  win  popular  applause  by  sowing  dissension  between 
England  and  her  colonies.  But  the  Americans  were 


-»  7  Geo.  III.  c.  46,  56. 


112 


ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 


only  too  well  justified  in  asserting  that  the  suppression 
of  several  of  their  industries  and  the  monopoly  by 
England  of  some  of  the  chief  branches  of  their  trade,  if 
they  did  not  benefit  the  mother  country,  at  least  im- 
posed sacrifices  on  her  colonies  fully  equivalent  to  a 
considerable  tax.1  They  were  also  quite  justified  in 
contending  that  the  power  of  taxation  was  essential  to 
the  importance  of  their  Assemblies,  and  that  an  extreme 
jealousy  of  any  encroachment  on  this  prerogative  was 
in  perfect  accordance  with  the  traditions  of  English 
liberty.  They  had  before  their  eyes  the  hereditary 
revenue,  the  scandalous  pension  list,  the  monstrous 
abuses  of  patronage,  in  Ireland,  and  they  were  quite 
resolved  not  to  suffer  similar  abuses  in  America.2  The 
judges  only  held  their  seats  during  the  royal  pleasure. 
Ministerial  patronage  in  the  colonies,  as  elsewhere,  was 
often  grossly  corrupt,3  and  in  the  eyes  of  the  colonists 


1  See  the  '  Cause  of  American 
Discontents      before      1768.'  — 
Franklin's  Works,  iv.  250,  251. 

2  See  a  powerful  statement  of 
the  abuses  in   Ireland    in    the 
Farmer's  Letters,  No.  10. 

3  In  a  private  letter  written  by 
General    Huske,    a    prominent 
American  who   was  residing  in 
England  in   1758,  there  is   an 
extraordinary,  though  probably 
somewhat  overcharged,  account 
of    English     appointments     in 
America.     '  For  many  years  past 
....  most  of  the  places  in  the 
gift  of  the  Crown  have  been  filled 
with  broken  Members  of  Parlia- 
ment, of  bad  if  any  principles, 
pimps,  valets  de  chambre,  elec- 
tioneering scoundrels,  and  even 
livery   servants.     In   one  word, 
America  has  been  for  many  years 
made    the    hospital    of    Great 
Britain  for  her  decayed  courtiers, 


and  abandoned,  worn-out  de- 
pendents. I  can  point  you  out  a 
chief  justice  of  a  province  ap- 
pointed from  home  for  no  other 
reason  than  publicly  prostituting 
his  honour  and  conscience  at  an 
election;  a  livery  servant  that 
is  secretary  of  a  province,  ap- 
pointed from  hence ;  a  pimp, 
collector  of  a  whole  province,  who 
got  this  place  of  the  man  in 
power  for  prostituting  his  hand- 
some wife  to  his  embraces  and 
procuring  him  other  means  of 
gratifying  his  lust.  InnumeraWe 
are  instances  of  this  sort  in 
places  of  great  trust.' — Philli- 
more's  Life  of  Lyttelton,  ii.  604. 
In  Parliament  Captain  Phipps, 
speaking  of  America,  said,  '  In- 
dividuals have  been  taken  from 
the  gaols  to  preside  in  the  seat 
of  justice ;  offices  have  been 
given  to  men  who  had  never  seen 


CH.  xi.    RECEPTION  OF  TOWNSHEND'S  LAW  IN  AMERICA.   113 

the  annual  grant  was  the  one  efficient  control  upon 
maladministration. 

A  period  of  wild  and  feverish  confusion  followed. 
Counsels  of  the  most  violent  kind  were  freely  circu- 
lated, and  for  a  time  it  seemed  as  if  the  appointment 
of  the  new  Board  of  Commissioners  would  be  resisted 
by  force  ;  but  Otis  and  some  of  the  other  popular 
leaders  held  back  from  the  conflict,  and  in  several  colo 
nies  a  clear  sense  of  the  serious  nature  of  the  struggle 
that  was  impending  exercised  a  sobering  influence. 
Georgia,  which  had  been  inclined  to  follow  the  exam- 
ple of  New  York,  was  brought  to  reason  by  the  pros- 
pect of  being  left  without  the  protection  of  English 
troops  in  the  midst  of  the  negroes  and  the  Indians.1 
The  central  and  southern  colonies  hesitated  for  some 
time  to  follow  the  lead  of  New  England.  Hutchinson 
wrote  to  the  Government  at  home  that  Boston  would 
probably  find  no  other  town  to  follow  her  in  her  career 
of  violence ;  and  De  Kalb,  the  secret  agent  of  Choiseul, 
who  was  busily  employed  in  fomenting  rebellion  in  the 
colonies,  appears  for  a  time  to  have  thought  it  would 
all  end  in  words,  and  that  England,  by  keeping  her 
taxes  within  very  moderate  limits,  would  maintain  her 
authority.2  Massachusetts,  however,  had  thrown  herself 
with  fierce  energy  into  the  conflict,  and  she  soon  carried 
the  other  provinces  in  her  wake.  Non-importation 
agreements  binding  all  the  inhabitants  to  abstain  from 
English  manufactures,  and  especially  from  every  article 
on  which  duties  were  levied  in  England,  spread  from 
colony  to  colony,  and  the  Assembly  of  Massachusetts 
issued  a  circular  addressed  to  all  the  other  colonial 
Assemblies  denouncing  the  new  laws  as  unconstitu- 
tional, and  inviting  the  different  Assemblies  to  take 


America*' —  Cavendish  Debates,          l  Hildreth,  ii.  540. 

i.  91.  2  Bancroft,  iii.  116,  140. 


114    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   en.  xi. 

united  measures  for  their  repeal.  The  Assembly  at  the 
same  time  drew  up  a  petition  to  the  King  and  ad- 
dresses to  the  leading  English  supporters  of  the  Ame- 
rican cause.1  These  addresses,  which  were  intended  to 
act  upon  English  opinion,  were  composed  with  great 
ability  and  moderation ;  and  while  expressing  the  firm 
resolution  of  the  Americans  to  resist  every  attempt  at  par- 
liamentary taxation,  they  acknowledged  fully  the  general 
legislative  authority  of  Parliament,  and  disclaimed  in 
the  strongest  language  any  wish  for  independence. 

In  America  the  language  commonly  used  was  less 
decorous.  One  of  the  Boston  newspapers  dilated  furi- 
ously upon  the  '  obstinate  malice,  diabolical  thirst  for 
mischief,  effrontery,  guileful  treachery,  and  wickedness ' 
of  the  Governor2  in  such  terms  that  the  paper  was 
brought  before  the  Assembly,  but  that  body  would  take 
no  notice  of  it,  and  the  grand  jury  refused  to  find  a 
true  bill  against  its  publisher.  The  Commissioners  of 
the  revenue  found  that  it  was  idle  to  attempt  to  en- 
force the  Revenue  Acts  without  the  presence  of  British 
troops.  Riots  were  absolutely  unpunished,  for  no  jury 


1  In  their  petition  to  the  King  dependency  of    Great  Britain.' 

they  say,  '  With  great  sincerity  '  So  sensible  are  the  members  of 

permit  us  to  assure  your  Majesty  this  House,'  they  wrote  to  Kock- 

that  your  subjects  of  this  pro-  ingham,  '  of  their  happiness  and 

Yince  ever  have,  and  still  con-  safety  in  their  union  with  and 

tinue  to  acknowledge  your  Ma-  dependence    upon    the  mother- 

j esty's  High  Court  of  Parliament,  country,  that  they  would  by  no 

the  supreme  legislative  power  of  means  be  inclined  to  accept  of  an 

the  whole  Empire,  the  superin-  independency  if  offered  to  them.' 

tending  authority  of    which    is  The  true   Sentiments  of   Ame- 

clearly  admitted  in  all  cases  that  rica,  as  contained  in  a  Collection 

can  consist  with  the  fundamental  of  Letters  sent  from  the  House 

rights  of  nature  and  the  Consti-  of    Representatives   of    Massa- 

tution.'     *  Your  Lordship,'  they  chusetts  Bay  to  several  Persons 

wrote  to  Shelburne,  '  is  too  can-  of  High  Rank  in  this  Kingdom, 

did  and  just  in  your  sentiments  London,  1768. 

to  suppose  that  the  House  have  2  Bancroft.     Hutchinson. 
the  most  distant  thought  of  in- 


CH.  xi.  DEATH   OF  TOWNSHEND.  115 

would  convict  the  rioters.  Bernard  wrote  that  his 
position  was  one  of  utter  and  humiliating  impotence, 
and  that  the  first  condition  of  the  maintenance  of  Eng- 
lish authority  in  Massachusetts  was  to  quarter  a  power- 
ful military  force  at  Boston. 

While  these  things  were  happening  in  America,  the 
composition  of  the  Ministry  at  home  was  rapidly  chang- 
ing. On  September  4, 1767,  after  a  short  fever,  Charles 
Townshend  died,  leaving  to  his  successors  the  legacy  of 
his  disastrous  policy  in  America,  but  having  achieved 
absolutely  nothing  to  justify  the  extraordinary  reputa- 
tion he  possessed  among  his  contemporaries.  Nothing 
of  the  smallest  value  remains  of  an  eloquence  which 
some  of  the  best  judges  placed  above  that  of  Burke  and 
only  second  to  that  of  Chatham,1  and  the  two  or  three 
pamphlets  which  are  ascribed  to  his  pen  hardly  surpass 
the  average  of  the  political  literature  of  the  time.  Exu- 
berant animal  spirits,  a  brilliant  and  ever  ready  wit, 
boundless  facility  of  repartee,  a  clear,  rapid,  and  spon- 
taneous eloquence,  a  gift  of  mimicry  which  is  said  to 
have  been  not  inferior  to  that  of  Garrick  and  of  Foote, 
great  charm  of  manner,  and  an  unrivalled  skill  in  adapt- 
ing himself  to  the  moods  and  tempers  of  those  who  were 
about  him,  had  made  him  the  delight  of  every  circle  in 

1  Flood,  in  a  letter  to  Charle-  brilliancy    and     spontaneity   of 

mont,   describing    a   debate    in  wit,  to  Chatham  in  solid  sense, 

which     almost    all     the     chief  and  to  every  other  speaker   in 

speakers  in  Parliament  had  ex-  histrionic    power. — Memoirs   of 

erted     themselves,     says     that  George  III.     See  especially,  ii. 

1  Burke  acquitted  himself  very  275  ;    iii.  23-27.       Sir  George 

honourably,'  but  there  was  '  no  Colebrooke   said  that   '  Nobody 

one    person    near     Townshend.  excepting  Mr.  Pitt  possessed  a 

He  is  an  orator.    The  rest  are  style    of    oratory    so    perfectly 

speakers.' — Original    Letters  to  suited  to  the  House '  (Walpole'a 

Flood,  p.  27.    Walpole,  in  his  George  III.  iii.  102).    And  Thur- 

numerous      allusions      to      his  low  described  him  as  '  the  most 

speeches,     describes     him      as  delightful  speaker  he  ever  knew.' 

greatly  superior    to    Burke    in  — Nicholls'  George  III.  p.  26. 


116     ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xi. 

which  he  moved,  the  spoilt  child  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. He  died  when  only  forty-two,  but  he  had  al- 
ready much  experience  of  official  life.  He  had  been 
made  a  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  in  1754,  Treasurer  of 
the  Chamber  and  member  of  the  Privy  Council  in  1756, 
Secretary  of  War  in  1761,  President  of  the  Board  of 
Trade  in  1763,  Paymaster- General  in  1765,  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  in  1766.  The  extraordinary  quick- 
ness of  apprehension  which  was  his  most  remarkable 
intellectual  gift,  soon  made  him  a  perfect  master  of 
official  business,  and  no  man  knew  so  well  how  to  apply 
his  knowledge  to  the  exigencies  of  debate,  and  how  to 
pursue  every  topic  to  the  exact  line  which  pleased  and 
convinced  without  tiring  the  House.  Had  he  possessed 
any  earnestness  of  character,  any  settled  convictions, 
any  power  of  acting  with  fidelity  to  his  colleagues,  or 
any  self-control,  he  might  have  won  a  great  name  in 
English  politics.  He  sought,  however,  only  to  sparkle 
and  to  please,  and  was  ever  ready  to  sacrifice  any  prin- 
ciple or  any  connection  for  the  excitement  and  the 
vanity  of  a  momentary  triumph.  In  the  absence  of 
Chatham,  whom  he  disliked  and  feared,  he  had  been 
rapidly  rising  to  the  foremost  place.  He  had  obtained 
a  peerage  for  his  wife,  and  the  post  of  Lord  Lieutenant 
of  Ireland  for  his  brother ;  he  had  won  the  favour  of 
the  King,  and  was  the  idol  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  he  had  forced  the  Government  into  a  line  of  policy 
which  was  wholly  opposed  to  that  of  Camden,  Grafton, 
and  Shelburne.  In  a  few  months,  or  perhaps  weeks,  he 
would  probably  have  been  the  head  of  a  new  ministry. 
Death  called  him  away  in  the  full  flush  of  his  triumph 
and  his  powers,  and  he  obeyed  the  summons  with  the 
same  good-humoured  levity  which  he  had  shown  in  so 
many  periods  of  his  brief  and  agitated  career.1 

1  Townshend  is    now  chiefly      beautiful  character  of  him    in 
remembered    by  the  singularly      Burke 's    speech    on    American 


en.  xi.  CHANGES  IN  THri  MINISTRY.  117 

He  was  replaced  by  Lord  North,  the  favourite  minis- 
ter of  the  King,  and  one  of  the  strongest  advocates  of 
American  taxation,  and  in  the  course  of  the  next  few 
months  nearly  all  those  who  were  favourable  to  America 
disappeared  from  the  Government.  Con  way,  Shelburne, 
and  Chatham  successively  resigned,  and  though  Camden 
remained  for  a  time  in  office  he  restricted  himself  ex- 
clusively to  his  judicial  duties,  and  took  no  part  in 
politics.  Lord  Hillsborough  was  entrusted  as  Secretary 
of  State  with  the  special  care  of  the  colonies,  and  the 
Bedford  party,  who  now  joined  and  in  a  great  measure 
controlled  the  Government,  were  strenuous  supporters  • 
of  the  policy  of  coercing  America. 

The  circular  of  the  Massachusetts  Assembly  calling 
the  other  provincial  Assemblies  to  assist  in  obtaining 
the  repeal  of  the  recent  Act  was  first  adverted  to. 
Hillsborough,  in  an  angry  circular  addressed  to  the 
governors  of  the  different  provinces,  urged  them  to 
exert  their  influence  to  prevent  the  Assemblies  of  their 
respective  provinces  from  taking  any  notice  of  it,  and 
he  characterised  it  in  severe  terms  as  '  a  flagitious  at- 
tempt to  disturb  the  public  peace '  by  '  promoting  an 
unwarrantable  combination  and  exhibiting  an  open  op- 
position to  and  denial  of  the  authority  of  Parliament/  He 
at  the  same  time  called  on  the  Massachusetts  Assembly 

taxation.    Horace  Walpole  says  North  Briton  (No.  20)  it  is  said 

of  him,    '  He  had  almost  every  of  him,  '  He  joins  to  an  infinite 

great    talent    and    every    little  fire  of  imagination  and  brilliancy 

quality.  .  .  .  With  such  a  capa-  of  wit,  a  cool  and  solid  judg- 

city    he  must    have    been    the  ment,  a  wonderful  capacity  for 

greatest  man  of   this   age,  and  business  of  every  kind,  the  most 

perhaps  inferior  to  no  man  in  intense  application  to  it,  and  a 

any  age,  had  his  faults  been  only  consummate  knowledge  of    the 

In    a    moderate    proportion.' —  great    commercial    interests    of 

Memoirs  of  George  III.  iii.  100.  this    country,    which    I    never 

See,  too,  Sir  G.  Colebrooke's  cha-  heard  were  before  united  in  ths 

racter  of  him.    Ibid.  pp.  100-  same  person.' 
102.     In  an  able  paper  in  the 


118   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


CH.  XI. 


to  rescind  its  proceedings  on  the  subject.  After  an 
animated  debate  the  Assembly,  in  the  summer  of  1768, 
refused  by  92  votes  to  17.  It  was  at  once  dissolved, 
and  no  new  Chamber  was  summoned  till  the  following 
year.  The  Assembly  of  Virginia  was  dissolved  on  ac- 
count of  resolutions  condemning  the  whole  recent  policy 
of  England,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  months  a  similar 
step  was  taken  in  Maryland,  Georgia,  North  Carolina, 
and  New  York.  It  was  a  useless  measure,  for  the  new 
Assemblies  which  were  summoned  in  obedience  to  the 
charter  were  very  similar  to  their  predecessors.  In  the 
meantime,  two  regiments  escorted  by  seven  ships  of 
war  were  sent  to  Boston  to  strengthen  the  Government. 
More  energetic  attempts  were  made  to  enforce  the 
revenue  laws,  and  several  collisions  took  place.  Thus 
the  sloop  '  Liberty,'  belonging  to  Hancock,  a  leading 
merchant  of  the  patriot  party,  arrived  at  Boston  in  June 
1768,  laden  with  wines  from  Madeira,  and  a  Custom- 
house officer  went  on  board  to  inspect  the  cargo.  He 
was  seized  by  the  crew  and  detained  for  several  hours 
while  the  cargo  was  landed,  and  a  few  pipes  of  wine 
were  entered  on  oath  at  the  Custom-house  as  if  they 
had  been  the  whole.  On  the  liberation  of  the  officer 
the  vessel  was  seized  for  a  false  entry,  and  in  order  to 
prevent  the  possibility  of  a  rescue  it  was  removed  from 
the  wharf  under  the  guns  of  a  man-of-war.  A  great 
riot  followed,  and  the  Custom-house  officers  were  obliged 
to  fly  to  a  ship  of  war,  and  afterwards  to  the  barracks, 
for  protection.1  On  another  occasion  a  cargo  of  smug- 
gled Madeira  was  ostentatiously  carried  through  the 
streets  of  Boston  with  an  escort  of  thirty  or  forty  strong 
men  armed  with  bludgeons,  and  the  Custom-house  offi- 
cers were  so  intimidated  that  they  did  not  dare  to 
interfere.2  At  Newport  an  inhabitant  of  the  town  was 

1  Holmes'  American  Annals,      Massachusetts  Bay,  pp.  189, 190. 
1763.      Hutchinson's    Hist,    of         2  Ibid.  p.  188. 


CH.  xi.  THE   BOSTON  REGIMENTS.  119 

killed  in  an  affray  with  some  midshipmen  of  a  ship  of 
war,1  and  a  few  months  later  a  revenue  cutter  which 
was  lying  at  the  wharf  was  attacked  and  burnt.2  At 
Providence,  an  active  Custom-house  officer  was  tarred 
and  feathered.3  Effigies  of  the  new  Commissioners 
were  hung  on  the  liberty  tree  at  Boston.  The  Governor 
and  other  officials  were  insulted  by  the  mob,  and  new 
non-importation  engagements  were  largely  subscribed. 

The  first  troops  from  England  arrived  in  Massachu- 
setts between  the  dissolution  of  the  old  and  the  election 
of  the  new  Assembly,  but  shortly  before  their  arrival 
the  inhabitants  of  Boston  gathered  together  in  an  im- 
mense meeting  and  voted  that  a  standing  army  could 
not  be  kept  in  the  province  without  its  consent.  Much 
was  said  about  Brutus,  Cassius,  Oliver  Cromwell,  and 
Paoli;  the  arms  belonging  to  the  town  were  brought 
out,  and  Otis  declared  that  if  an  attempt  was  made 
against  the  liberties  of  the  people  they  would  be  distri- 
buted. A  day  of  prayer  and  fasting  was  appointed ;  a 
very  significant  resolution  was  carried  by  an  immense 
majority,  calling  upon  all  the  inhabitants  to  provide 
themselves  with  arms  and  ammunition,  and  no  one  was 
deceived  by  the  transparent  pretext  that  they  might  be 
wanted  against  the  French.  Open  treason  was  freely 
talked,  and  many  of  the  addresses  to  the  Governor  were 
models  of  grave  and  studied  insolence. 

These  documents  were  chiefly  composed  by  Samuel 
Adams,  a  very  remarkable  man  who  had  now  begun  to 
exercise  a  dominant  influence  in  Boston  politics,  and 
who  was  one  of  the  chief  authors  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution. He  had  an  hereditary  antipathy  to  the  British 
Government,  for  his  father  seems  to  have  been  ruined 
by  the  restrictions  the  English  Parliament  imposed  on 
the  circulation  of  paper  money,  and  a  bank  in  which  hia 

1  Arnold's  Hist,  of  Rhode  Is-          2  Ibid. p.  297. 
land,  ii.  288.  »  Ibid.  p.  294. 

10 


120    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  si. 

father  was  largely  concerned  had  been  dissolved  by  Act 
of  Parliament,  leaving  debts  which  seventeen  years  later 
were  still  unpaid.  It  appears  that  Hutchinson  was  a 
leading  person  in  dissolving  the  bank.  Samuel  Adams 
had  taken  part  in  various  occupations.  He  was  at  one 
time  a  small  brewer  and  at  another  a  tax-gatherer,  but 
in  the  last  capacity  he  entirely  failed,  for  a  large  sum 
of  money  which  ought  to  have  passed  into  the  Exche- 
quer was  not  forthcoming.  It  seems,  however,  that 
no  more  serious  charge  could  be  substantiated  against 
him  than  that  of  unbusiness-like  habits  and  an  insuffi- 
cient stringency  in  levying  the  public  dues ;  the  best 
judges  appear  to  have  been  fully  convinced  of  his 
integrity  in  money  matters,  and  it  is  strongly  con- 
firmed by  the  austere  and  simple  tenor  of  his  whole 
later  life.1 

He  early  became  one  of  the  most  active  writers  in 
the  American  Press,  and  was  the  soul  of  every  agitation 
against  the  Government.  It  was  noticed  that  he  had  a 
special  skill  in  discovering  young  men  of  promise  and 
brilliancy,  and  that,  without  himself  possessing  any 
dazzling  qualities,  he  seldom  failed  by  the  force  of  his 
character  and  the  intense  energy  of  his  convictions  in 
obtaining  an  ascendency  over  their  minds.  It  was 
only  in  1765,  when  Adams  was  already  forty-three, 
that  he  obtained  a  seat  in  the  Assembly,  where,  with 
Otis  and  two  or  three  others,  he  took  a  chief  part 
in  organising  opposition  to  the  Government.  In  the  lax 
moral  atmosphere  of  the  eighteenth  century  he  exhi- 
bited in  perfection  the  fierce  and  sombre  type  of  the 
seventeenth-century  Covenanter.  Poor,  simple,  osten- 


1  The  life  of  S.  Adams  has  racter.    Several  facts  relating  to 

been  written  with  great  elabora-  him  will  be  found  in  Hutchin- 

tion  and  unqualified  eulogy  by  eon's  Hist,  of  Massachusetts  Bay, 

W.  V.  Wells,  and  Bancroft  adopts  pp.  294,  295. 
u  very  similar  view  of  his  eha- 


CH.  xi.  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  121 

tatiously  austere  and  indomitably  courageous,  the 
blended  influence  of  Calvinistic  theology  and  of  repub- 
lican principles  had  permeated  and  indurated  his  whole 
character,  and  he  carried  into  politics  all  the  fervour  of 
an  apostle  and  all  the  narrowness  of  a  sectarian.  Hating 
with  a  fierce  hatred,  monarchy  and  the  English  Church, 
and  all  privileged  classes  and  all  who  were  invested  with 
dignity  and  rank  ;  utterly  incapable  of  seeing  any  good 
thing  in  an  opponent,  or  of  accepting  any  form  of  poli- 
tical compromise,  he  advocated  on  all  occasions  the 
strongest  measures,  and  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the 
first  both  to  foresee  and  to  desire  an  armed  struggle. 
He  had  some  literary  talent,  and  his  firm  will  and  clearly 
defined  principles  gave  him  for  a  time  a  greater  influence 
than  abler  men.  He  now  maintained  openly  that  any 
British  troops  which  landed  should  be  treated  as  enemies, 
attacked,  and,  if  possible,  destroyed.  More  moderate 
counsels  prevailed ;  yet  measures  verging  on  revolution 
were  adopted.  As  the  Governor  alone  could  summon 
or  prorogue  the  Assembly,  a  convention  was  held  afc 
Boston  when  it  was  not  sitting,  to  which  almost  every 
town  and  every  district  of  the  province  sent  its  dele- 
gate, and  it  assumed  all  the  semblance  of  a  legislative 
body. 

The  Assembly  itself,  when  it  met,  pronounced  the 
establishment  of  a  standing  army  in  the  colony  in  time 
of  peace  to  be  an  invasion  of  natural  rights  and  a  viola- 
tion of  the  Constitution,  and  it  positively  refused  to 
provide  quarters  for  the  troops,  on  the  ground  that  the 
barracks  in  an  island  three  miles  from  the  town,  though 
within  the  municipal  circle  of  Boston,  were  not  yet  full. 
The  plea  was  ingenious  and  strictly  legal,  and  the  troops 
were  accordingly  quartered  as  well  as  paid  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  Crown.  The  simple  presence  among  the 
colonists  of  English  soldiers  was,  however,  now  treated 
as  an  intolerable  grievance ;  the  regiments  were  ab- 


122    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xi. 

surdly  called  *  an  unlawful  assembly,'  and  they  were  in- 
variably spoken  of  as  if  they  were  foreign  invaders.  The 
old  distinction  between  internal  and  external  taxation,  the 
old  acquiescence  in  commercial  restrictions,  and  the  old 
acknowledgment  of  the  general  legislative  authority  of 
Parliament,  had  completely  disappeared  from  Boston 
politics.  The  treatise  which,  half  a  century  earlier, 
Molyneux  had  written  on  the  rights  of  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment now  became  a  text-book  in  the  colonies,  and  it 
was  the  received  doctrine  that  they  owed  allegiance  in- 
deed to  the  King,  but  were  wholly  independent  of  the 
British  Parliament.  They  scornfully  repudiated  at  the 
same  time  the  notion  of  maintaining  like  Ireland  a  mili- 
tary establishment  for  the  general  defence  of  the  Empire. 
It  is  also  remarkable  that  the  project  of  a  legislative 
union  with  Great  Britain,  which  was  at  this  time  advo- 
cated by  Pownall  in  England,  was  absolutely  repudiated 
in  America.  Pownall  wished  the  colonial  Assemblies 
to  continue,  but  to  send  representatives  to  the  English 
Parliament,  which  would  thus  possess  the  right  of  taxing 
the  colonists.  But  this  scheme  found  no  favour  in 
America.  It  was  pronounced  impracticable  and  danger- 
ous. It  was  said  that  the  colonial  representatives  would 
speedily  be  corrupted,  that  the  colonists  could  never 
hope  to  obtain  a  representation  adequate  to  their  im- 
portance, and  that  inadequate  representation  was  even 
a  greater  grievance  than  taxation  without  representa- 
tion. Bernard  now  strongly  advocated  the  permanent 
admission  of  American  representatives  into  the  British 
Parliament  as  the  only  possible  solution,  but  he  acknow- 
ledged that  the  idea  was  unpopular,  and  he  alleged  that 
the  true  reason  was  that  if  the  colonies  were  represented 
in  Parliament  they  could  have  no  pretext  for  disobeying 
it.1  It  was  evident  that  every  path  of  compromise  was 


1  Letters  of  Governor  Bernard,  pp.  55-60. 


CH.  xi.  GROWING   DISAFFECTION.  123 

closing,  and  that  disaffection  was  steadily  rising  to  the 
height  of  revolution.  Foreign  observers  saw  that  the 
catastrophe  was  fast  approaching,  and  Choiseul  noticed 
that  the  English  had  no  cavalry  and  scarcely  10,000 
infantry  in  America,  while  the  colonial  militia  numbered 
400,000  men,  including  several  cavalry  regiments.  It 
was  not  difficult,  he  concluded,  to  predict  that  if  America 
could  only  find  a  Cromwell  she  would  speedily  cease  to 
form  a  part  of  the  British  Empire.1 

For  the  present,  except  a  few  revenue  riots,  resist- 
ance was  purely  passive.  The  Massachusetts  Assembly 
petitioned  for  the  removal  of  the  troops  and  for  the 
removal  of  the  Governor.  Acute  lawyers  contested 
every  legal  point  that  could  possibly  be  raised  against 
the  Government.  The  grand  juries  being  elected  by 
the  townships  were  wholly  on  the  side  of  the  people, 
and  they  systematically  refused  to  present  persons  guilty 
of  libel,  riot,  or  sedition.  Non-importation  agreements 
spread  rapidly  from  town  to  town,  and  had  a  serious 
effect  upon  English  commerce.  The  troops  had  little 
to  do  as  there  was  no  open  resistance,  but  they  found 
themselves  treated  as  pariahs  and  excluded  from  every 
kind  of  society,  and  they  had  even  much  difficulty  in 
procuring  the  necessaries  of  life. 

The  English  Parliament  in  December  1768  and 
January  1769  greatly  aggravated  the  contest.  Both 
Houses  passed  resolutions  condemning  the  disloyal 
spirit  of  Massachusetts,  the  non-importation  agreements, 
and  the  Boston  convention ;  and  addresses  were  carried 
thanking  the  Sovereign  for  the  measures  he  had  taken 
to  maintain  the  authority  of  England ;  promising  a  full 
support  to  future  measures  taken  with  that  end,  and 
suggesting  that  the  names  of  the  most  active  agitators 
should  be  transmitted  to  one  of  the  Secretaries  of  State, 


Bancroft 


124    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

and  that  a  long  disused  law  of  Henry  VIII.  which  em- 
powered the  Governor  to  bring  to  England  for  trial, 
persons  accused  of  treason  outside  England,  should  be 
put  in  force.1  This  last  measure  was  due  to  the  Duke 
of  Bedford,  and  although  it  was  certainly  not  unpro- 
voked, it  excited  a  fierce  and  legitimate  indignation  in 
America,  and  added  a  new  and  very  serious  item  to  the 
long  list  of  colonial  grievances.  Already,  the  colonial 
advocates  were  accustomed  to  say,  a  Parliament  in 
which  the  colonies  were  wholly  unrepresented,  claimed 
an  absolute  power  of  restricting  their  commerce,  of 
taxing  them,  and  even,  as  in  the  case  of  New  York,  01 
suspending  their  legislative  assemblies.  British  troops 
were  planted  among  them  to  coerce  them.  Their 
governors  and  judges  were  to  be  made  independent  of 
their  Assemblies,  and  now  the  protection  of  a  native 
jury,  which  alone  remained,  was  to  be  destroyed.  By 
virtue  of  an  obsolete  law,  passed  in  one  of  the  darkest 
periods  of  English  history  and  at  a  time  when  England 
possessed  not  a  single  colony,  any  colonist  who  was 
designated  by  the  Governor  as  a  traitor  might  be  carried 
three  thousand  miles  from  his  home,  from  his  witnesses, 
from  the  scene  of  his  alleged  crime,  from  all  those  who 
were  acquainted  with  the  general  tenor  of  his  life,  to 
be  tried  by  strangers  of  the  very  nation  which  he 
was  supposed  to  have  offended.  Combine  all  these 
measures,  it  was  said,  and  what  trace  of  political  free- 
dom would  be  left  in  the  colonies  ? 

This  measure  was  apparently  intended  only  to  in- 
timidate the  more  violent  agitators,  and  it  was  never 
put  in  action.  The  Cabinet  were  much  divided  about 
their  American  policy,  and  signs  of  weakness  speedily 
appeared.  Townshend's  Act  had  brought  America  to 
the  verge  of  revolution,  and  had  entailed  great  expense 

1  Parl  Hist.  xvi.  477-487.    Cavendish  Debates,  i.  192  -194. 


en.  xi.  THE  TEA  DUTY  MAINTAINED.  125 

on  the  country,  but  it  had  hitherto  produced  no  appre- 
ciable revenue,  and  there  was  little  or  no  prospect  of 
improvement.  It  was  stated  that  the  total  produce  of 
the  new  taxes  for  the  first  year  was  less  than  16,OOOL, 
that  the  net  proceeds  of  the  Crown  revenue  in  America 
were  only  about  295Z.,  and  that  extraordinary  military 
expenses  amounting  to  170,OOOZ.  had  in  the  same  period 
been  incurred.1  Pownall,  who  had  preceded  Bernard 
as  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  strongly  urged  in  Par- 
liament the  repeal  of  the  new  duties,  and  a  considerable 
section  of  the  Cabinet  supported  his  view.  After  much 
discussion  it  was  resolved  to  adopt  a  policy  of  com- 
promise2— to  repeal  the  duties  on  glass,  paper,  and 
painters'  colours,  and  to  retain  that  on  tea  for  the  pur- 
pose of  keeping  up  the  right.  Less  than  300Z.  had 
hitherto  been  obtained  by  this  charge ;  but  the  King, 
the  Bedford  section  of  the  Cabinet,  and  Lord  North 
determined,  in  opposition  to  Grafton  and  Camden,  to 
retain  it,  and  they  carried  their  point  in  the  Cabinet 
by  a  majority  of  one  vote.  A  circular  intimating  the 
intention  of  the  Government  was  despatched  in  the 
course  of  1769  to  the  governors  of  the  different  colonies, 
and  in  this  circular  Lord  Hillsborough  officially  in- 
formed them  that  the  Cabinet  '  entertained  no  design 
to  propose  to  Parliament  to  lay  any  further  taxes  on 
America  for  the  purpose  of  raising  a  revenue.' 3  Gover- 
nor Bernard,  whose  relations  with  the  Assembly  and 
Council  of  Massachusetts  had  long  been  as  hostile  as 

1  Hildreth,  ii.  553.  [for  the  taxation  or  coercion  of 

2  The    Massachusetts    Agent,  America]  with  Lord  North  the 
De  Berdt,  wrote  to  the  Assembly  Chancellor,  but   the  opposition 
in  July  1768,  describing  an  inter-  you  had  made  rendered  it  abso- 
view  with  Hillsborough.     'He  lutely  necessary  to  support  the 
assured   me,    before   the  warm  authority  of  Parliament.' — Has- 
measures  taken  on  your  side  had  sacliusetts  State  Papers,  p.  161. 
come  to  their  knowledge  he  had  3  Grahame,  iv.  297. 

settled  the  repeal  of  those  Acts 


126    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   C£.  x«, 

possible,  was  rewarded  for  his  services  to  the  Crown  by 
a  baronetcy,  but  in  the  August  of  1769  he  was  recalled 
to  England  amid  a  storm  of  insult  and  rejoicing  from 
the  people  he  had  governed;  and  after  about  a  year, 
Hutchinson,  who,  though  equally  devoted  to  the  Govern- 
ment, was  somewhat  less  unpopular  with  the  colonists, 
was  promoted  to  the  ungrateful  post.  Some  slight 
signs  of  improvement  were  visible.  New  York  sub- 
mitted to  the  Mutiny  Act,  and  its  Assembly  accordingly 
regained  its  normal  powers.  The  non-importation 
agreements  had  for  some  time  been  very  imperfectly 
observed,  and  it  was  soon  noticed  that  a  good  deal  of 
tea  was  imported  in  small  quantities,  and  that  the  port 
duty  was  paid  without  difficulty.1 

Hitherto,  though  the  townspeople  of  Boston  had 
done  everything  in  their  power  to  provoke  and  irritate 
the  soldiers  who  were  quartered  among  them,  there  had 
been  no  serious  collision.  The  condition  of  the  town, 
however,  was  such  that  it  was  scarcely  possible  that 
any  severity  of  discipline  could  long  avert  it.  There 
was  a  perfect  reign  of  terror  directed  against  all  who 
supported  the  revenue  Acts  and  who  sympathised  with 
authority.  Soldiers  could  scarcely  appear  in  the  streets 
without  being  the  objects  of  the  grossest  insult.  A 
Press  eminently  scurrilous  and  vindictive  was  ceaselessly 
employed  in  abusing  them :  they  had  become,  as 
Samuel  Adams  boasted,  '  the  objects  of  the  contempt 
even  of  women  and  children/  Every  offence  they  com- 
mitted was  maliciously  exaggerated  and  vindictively 
prosecuted,  while  in  the  absence  of  martial  law  they 
were  obliged  to  look  passively  on  the  most  flagrant  in- 
sults to  authority.  At  one  time  the  *  sons  of  liberty ' 
in  a  procession  a  mile  and  a  half  long  marched  round 
the  State  House  to  commemorate  their  riots  against  the 

1  See  Hutchinson's  Hist,  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  pp.  360,  351, 
422,  423. 


CH.  xi.  CONDITION   OF  BOSTON.  127 

Stamp  Act,  and  met  in  the  open  fields  to  chant  their 
liberty  song  and  drink  *  strong  halters,  firm  blocks, 
and  sharp  axes  to  such  as  deserve  them/  At  another 
•an  informer  who  was  found  guilty  of  giving  information 
to  revenue  officers  was  seized  by  a  great  multitude, 
tarred  and  feathered,  and  led  through  the  streets  of 
Boston,  which  were  illuminated  in  honour  of  the  achieve- 
ment. A  printer  who  had  dared  to  caricature  the 
champions  of  freedom  was  obliged  to  fly  from  his 
house,  to  take  refuge  among  the  soldiers,  and  ultimately 
to  escape  from  Boston  in  disguise.  Merchants  who 
had  ventured  to  import  goods  from  England  were  com- 
pelled by  mob  violence  to  give  them  up  to  be  destroyed 
or  to  be  re-embarked.  A  shopkeeper  who  sold  some 
English  goods  found  a  post  planted  in  the  ground  with 
a  hand  pointing  to  his  door,  and  when  a  friend  tried  to 
remove  it  he  was  stoned  by  a  fierce  mob  through  the 
streets.  A  popular  minister  delighted  his  congrega- 
tion by  publicly  praying  that  the  Almighty  would 
remove  from  Boston  the  English  soldiers.  It  was  said 
that  they  corrupted  the  morals  of  the  town,  that  their 
drums  and  fifes  were  heard  upon  the  Sabbath-day,  that 
their  language  was  often  violent,  threatening,  or  profane, 
that  on  several  occasions  they  had  struck  citizens  who 
insulted  them.1  On  March  2,  1770,  there  was  a  scuffle 
at  a  ropewalk  between  some  soldiers  and  the  rope- 
makers,  and  on  the  night  of  the  5th  there  occurred  the 
tragedy  which,  in  the  somewhat  grandiloquent  phrase 
of  John  Adams,  '  laid  the  foundation  of  American  inde- 


1  Holmes.    Bancroft.    One  of  presume  we  may  safely  say  that 

the  later  accusations  against  the  our  language  has  suffered  more 

English  soldiers  was,  that  they  injurious    changes    in  America 

impaired  the  purity  of  the  Ameri-  since  the  British  army  landed  on 

can  pronunciation  of  English.  our  shores  than  it  had  suffered 

Noah  Webster,  in   his  curious  before,  in  the  period  of   three 

e§say  on  the  *  Manners  of  the  centuries.'  —  Webster's  Essays, 

United  States '  (1787),  siiys  :  •  I  p.  96. 


128    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,   en.  «. 

pendence.'  A  false  alarm  of  fire  had  called  a  crowd  into 
the  streets, -and  a  mob  of  boys  and  men  amused  them- 
selves by  surrounding  and  insulting  a  solitary  sentinel 
who  was  on  guard  before  one  of  the  public  buildings. 
He  called  for  rescue,  and  a  party  consisting  of  a  cor- 
poral and  six  common  soldiers,  under  the  command  of 
Captain  Preston,  appeared  with  loaded  muskets  upon 
the  scene.  The  mob,  however,  refused  to  give  way. 
Some  forty  or  fifty  men — many  of  them  armed  with 
sticks — surrounded  the  little  band  of  soldiers,  shouting, 
*  Rascals,  lobsters,  bloody  backs ! '  1  and  defying  them 
to  use  their  arms.  They  soon  proceeded  to  violence. 
Snowballs  and,  according  to  some  testimony,  stones 
were  thrown.  The  crowd  pressed  violently  on  the 
soldiers,  and  it  was  afterwards  alleged  that  one  of  the 
soldiers  was  struck  by  a  club.  Whether  it  was  panic 
or  resentment,  or  the  mere  necessity  of  self-defence, 
was  never  clearly  established,  but  a  soldier  fired,  and 
in  another  moment  seven  muskets,  each  loaded  with 
two  balls,  were  discharged  with  deadly  effect  into  the 
crowd.  Five  men  fell  dead  or  dying,  and  six  others 
were  wounded. 

There  are  many  dreadful  massacres  recorded  in  the 
page  of  history — the  massacre  of  the  Danes  by  the 
Saxons,  the  massacre  of  the  Sicilian  Vespers,  the 
massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew — but  it  may  be  questioned 
whether  any  of  them  had  produced  such  torrents  of 
indignant  eloquence  as  the  affray  which  I  have  de- 
scribed. The  *  Boston  massacre/  or,  as  the  Americans, 
desiring  to  distinguish  it  from  the  minor  tragedies  of 
history,  loved  to  call  it,  *  The  bloody  massacre/  at  once 
kindled  the  colonies  into  a  flame.  The  terrible  tale  of 
how  the  bloody  and  brutal  myrmidons  of  England  had 
shot  down  the  inoffensive  citizens  in  the  streets  of  Boston 


In  allusion  to  the  British  custom  of  flogging  soldiers. 


CK.  xi.        WITHDRAWAL   OF   THE   BOSTON   TROOPS.  129 

raised  an  indignation  which  was  never  suffered  to  flag. 
In  Boston,  as  soon  as  the  tidings  of  the  tragedy  were 
spread  abroad,  the  church  bells  rang,  the  drums  beat 
to  call  the  people  to  arms,  and  next  day  an  immense 
meeting  of  the  citizens  resolved  that  the  soldiers  must 
no  longer  remain  in  the  town.  Samuel  Adams  and  the 
other  leading  agitators,  as  the  representatives  of  the 
people,  rushed  into  the  presence  of  Hutchinson,  and 
rather  commanded  than  asked  for  their  removal.  Hut- 
chinson hesitated  much.  He  was  not  yet  governor. 
Bernard  was  in  England.  Hutchinson  had  himself 
asked  for  the  troops  to  be  sent  to  Boston.  He  knew 
that  their  removal  would,  under  the  circumstances,  be  a 
great  humiliation  to  the  Government  and  a  great  en- 
couragement to  the  mob,  and  that  if  once  removed  it 
would  be  extremely  difficult  to  recall  them.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  they  remained  it  was  only  too  probable 
that  in  a  few  hours  the  streets  of  Boston  would  run  with 
blood.  He  consulted  the  council,  and  found  it  as  usual 
an  echo  of  the  public  voice.  He  yielded  at  last,  and 
the  troops  were  removed  to  Fort  William,  on  an  island 
three  miles  from  Boston,  and  the  wish  of  the  townsmen 
was  thus  at  last  accomplished.  An  immense  crowd 
accompanied  the  bodies  of  the  '  martyred '  citizens  to 
their  last  resting-place.  An  annual  celebration  was  at 
once  resolved  upon,  and  for  several  years  the  citizens 
were  accustomed  on  every  anniversary  to  meet  in  the 
chief  towns  of  America  in  chapels  hung  with  crape, 
while  the  most  popular  orators  described  the  horrors  of 
the  Boston  massacre,  the  tyranny  of  England,  and  the 
ferocious  character  of  standing  armies.1 

Few   things   contributed    more    to   the   American 
Revolution  than  this  unfortunate  affray.     Skilful  agi- 

1  The    commemoration     was       of  July.     Tudor's  Life  of 
kept  up  till  1783,  after  which  it       p.  4G2. 
was  replaced  by  that  of  the  4th 


130          ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY,      oz.  «. 

tators  perceived  the  advantage  it  gave  them,  and  the 
most  fantastic  exaggerations  were  dexterously  diffused. 
The  incident  had,  however,  a  sequel  which  is  extremely 
creditable  to  the  American  people.  It  was  determined 
to  try  the  soldiers  for  their  lives,  and  public  feeling  ran 
so  fiercely  against  them  that  it  seemed  as  if  their  fate 
was  sealed.  The  trial,  however,  was  delayed  for  seven 
months,  till  the  excitement  had  in  some  degree  subsided. 
Captain  Preston  very  judiciously  appealed  to  John 
Adams,  who  was  rapidly  rising  to  the  first  place  both 
among  the  lawyers  and  the  popular  patriots  of  Boston, 
to  undertake  his  defence.  Adams  knew  well  how  much 
he  was  risking  by  espousing  so  unpopular  a  cause,  but 
he  knew  also  his  professional  duty,  and,  though  violently 
opposed  to  the  British  Government,  he  was  an  eminently 
honest,  brave,  and  humane  man.  In  conjunction  with 
Josiah  Quincy,  a  young  lawyer  who  was  also  of  the 
patriotic  party,  he  undertook  the  invidious  task,  and  he 
discharged  it  with  consummate  ability.  It  was  clearly 
shown  that  the  popular  account  which  had  been  printed 
in  Boston  and  circulated  assiduously  through  the 
colonies,  representing  the  affair  as  a  deliberate  and  pre- 
meditated massacre  of  unoffending  citizens,  was  grossly 
untrue.  As  was  natural  in  the  case  of  a  confused 
scuffle  in  the  dark,  there  was  much  conflict  of  testimony 
about  the  exact  circumstances  of  the  affair,  but  there 
was  no  sufficient  evidence  that  Captain  Preston  had 
given  an  ordqr  to  fire;  and  although  no  soldier  was 
seriously  injured,  there  was  abundant  evidence  that  the 
soldiers  had  endured  gross  provocation  and  some 
violence.  If  the  trial  had  been  the  prosecution  of  a 
smuggler  or  a  seditious  writer,  the  jury  would  probably 
have  decided  against  evidence,  but  they  had  no  dis- 
position to  shed  innocent  blood.  Judges,  counsel,  and 
jurymen  acted  bravely  and  honourably.  All  the  soldiers 
were  acquitted,  except  two,  who  were  found  guilty  of 


CE    xi.  AMERICAN  HUMANITY.  131 

manslaughter,  and  who  escaped  with  very  slight  punish- 
ment. 

It  is  very  remarkable  that  after  Adams  had  accepted 
the  task  of  defending  the  incriminated  soldiers,  he  was 
elected  by  the  people  of  Boston  as  their  representative 
in  the  Assembly,  and  the  public  opinion  of  the  province 
appears  to  have  fully  acquiesced  in  the  verdict.1  In 
truth,  although  no  people  have  indulged  more  largely 
than  the  Americans  in  violent,  reckless,  and  unscru- 
pulous language,  no  people  have  at  every  period  of  their 
history  been  more  signally  free  from  the  thirst  for  blood, 
which  in  moments  of  great  political  excitement  has  been 
often  shown  both  in  England  and  France.  It  is  a 
characteristic  fact  that  one  of  the  first  protests  against 
the  excessive  multiplication  of  capital  offences  in  the 
English  legislation  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  made 
by  the  Assembly  of  Massachusetts,  which  in  1762. 
objected  to  death  as  a  punishment  for  forgery  on  the 
ground  that  { the  House  are  very  averse  to  capital 
punishment  in  any  case  where  the  interest  of  the 
Government  does  not  absolutely  require  it/  and  where 
some  other  punishment  will  be  sufficiently  deterrent.1 

1  See  on  this  episode,  Adams'  where  except  in  Boston  has  been 

Works,  i.   97-114,  ii.  229-233  ;  favourable  beyond  my  hopes.     I 

Hutchinson's   Hist,    of  Massa-  expected  that  the  court  and  jury 

chusetts  Bay ;  Hutchinson's  let-  would  be  censured,  but  they  are 

ters  to  Bernard,  and  the  Histories  generally  applauded.' — American 

of  Hildreth  and  Bancroft.    Mr.  Remembrancer,  1776,  part  i.  p. 

Bancroft  in  his  account  of  this  159.               • 

transaction    appears    to  me  to  2  Tudor's  Life  of  Otis,  p.  113. 

exhibit  even  more  strongly  than  According  to  Dr.  Price  (On  Civil 

usual  that  violent  partisanship  Liberty,  p.  101),  not  more  than 

which  so   greatly    impairs    the  one   execution  had  taken  place 

value  of  his  very  learned  History.  in  Massachusetts  Bay  in  eighteen 

Outside  Boston  the  verdict  seems  years.     The  annual   average   of 

to  have  given  much  satisfaction.  executions  in  London  alone  for 

Hutchinson  wrote  (Dec.  1770) :  twenty-three  years  before   1772 

'  The  reception  which  has  been  was  from  twenty-nine  to  thirty, 

given  to  the  late  verdicts  every-  — Howard  On  Prisons,  p.  9. 


132    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CT.  «. 

In  the  long  period  of  anarchy,  riot,  and  excitement 
which  preceded  the  American  ^Revolution  there  was 
scarcely  any  bloodshed  and  no  political  assassination, 
and  the  essential  humanity  of  American  public  opinion 
which  was  shown  so  conspicuously  during  the  trial  of 
the  soldiers  at  Boston,  was  afterwards  displayed  on  a  far 
wider  field  and  in  still  more  trying  circumstances  during 
the  fierce  passions  of  the  revolutionary  war,  and  still 
more  remarkably  in  the  triumph  of  the  North  in  the 
War  of  Secession. 

While  these  things  were  taking  place  in  America, 
Lord  North  carried  through  Parliament  his  measure  re- 
pealing all  the  duties  imposed  by  Townshend's  Act,  with 
the  exception  of  that  on  tea,1  which  he  maintained  in 
spite  of  a  very  able  opposition  led  by  Pownall.  His 
defence  of  the  distinction  was  by  no  means  destitute  of 
plausibility  or  even  of  real  force.  The  other  duties,  he 
said,  were  imposed  on  articles  of  English  manufacture 
imported  into  America,  and  such  duties  were  both  un- 
precedented and  economically  inexpedient,  as  calculated 
to  injure  English  industry.  The  duty  on  tea,  however, 
was  of  another  kind,  and  it  was  in  perfect  accordance 
with  commercial  precedents.  The  Americans  had  them- 
selves drawn  a  broad  distinction  between  external  and 
internal  taxation.  No  less  than  thirty-two  Acts  binding 
their  trade  had  been  imposed  and  submitted  to,  and  the 
power  of  Parliament  to  impose  port  duties  had,  till  the 
last  two  years,  ]Deen  unquestioned.2  Whatever  might 
be  said  of  the  Stamp  Act,  the  tea  duty  was  certainly 
not  a  grievance  to  America,  for  Parliament  had  relieved 
the  colonies  of  a  duty  of  nearly  I2d.  in  the  pound,  which 
had  hitherto  been  levied  in  England,  and  the  colonists 
were  only  asked  in  compensation  to  pay  a  duty  of  3d. 
in  the  pound  on  the  arrival  of  the  tea  in  America.  The 

•  10  Geo.  III.  17,  *  See  Cavendish  Debates,  i.  198,  222. 


CH.  xi.  THE  TEA  DUTY.  133 

measure  was,  therefore,  not  an  act  of  oppression  but  of 
relief,  making  the  price  of  tea  in  the  colonies  positively 
cheaper  than  it  had  been  before.1  It  was  coupled  with 
the  circular  of  Lord  Hillsborough  pledging  the  English 
Government  to  raise  no  further  revenue  from  America. 
At  the  same  time  the  quartering  Act,  which  had  been 
so  much  objected  to,  was  allowed  silently  to  expire.2 

It  will  probably  strike  the  reader  that  every  argu- 
ment which  showed  that  the  tea  duty  was  not  a  grievance 
to  the  colonies,  was  equally  powerful  to  show  that  it 
was  perfectly  useless  as  a  means  of  obtaining  a  revenue 
from  them.  It  would  be  difficult,  indeed,  to  find  a 
more  curious  instance  of  legislative  incapacity  than  the 
whole  transaction  displayed.  The  repeal  of  the  greater 
part  of  Townshend's  Act  had  given  the  agitators  in 
America  a  signal  triumph ;  the  maintenance  of  the  tea 
duty  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  obtaining  a  colonial 
revenue  left  them  their  old  pretext  for  agitation,  and  at 
the  same  time  that  duty  could  not  possibly  attain  the 
end  for  which  it  was  ostensibly  intended,  and  the  Go- 
vernment by  the  circular  of  Lord  Hillsborough  had  pre- 
cluded themselves  from  increasing  it.  Hutchinson, 
whose  judgment  of  American  opinion  is  entitled  to  the 
highest  respect,  has  expressed  his  firm  conviction  that 
the  Government  might  have  raised  the  whole  revenue 
they  expected  from  Townshend's  Act  without  the 
smallest  difficulty,  if  they  had  simply  adopted  the  ex- 
pedient of  levying  the  duty  on  goods  exported  to 
America  in  England  instead  of  in  the  colonies.3 

1  Stedman,  i.  74.    Hutchinson  same  tea  in  quality  at  3s.  the  Ib. 

Bays:  'By  taking  off  I2d., which  which  the  people    in  England 

used  to  be  paid  in  England,  and  drank  at  6s.' — Hist,    of    Mas- 

substituting  3d.  only,  payable  in  sachusetts  Bay,  p.  351. 

the  colonies,  tea    was  cheaper  a  Parl.    Hist.    xvi.  852-874; 

than  it  had  ever  been  sold  by  Cavendish  Debates,  i.  484-500. 

the  illicit  traders,  and  the  poor  8  '  If  these  duties  [those  in 

people    in    America   drank  the  Townshend's  Act]  had  been  paid 


134    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

The  object  of  maintaining  the  tea  duty  was,  of 
course,  to  assert  the  right  of  Parliament  to  impose  port 
duties,  and  this  assertion  was  thought  necessary  on 
account  of  the  recent  conduct  and  language  of  the 
Americans.1  At  the  same  time  North,  like  Grenville, 
continually  maintained  that  the  plan  of  obliging 
America  to  pay  for  her  own  army  might  have  been 
easily  and  peaceably  carried  out  had  the  condition  of 
English  parties  rendered  possible  any  steady,  systematic, 
and  united  policy.  It  was  the  changes,  vacillation, 
divisions,  and  weaknesses  of  English  ministries,  the 
utter  disintegration  of  English  parties,  the  rapid  alter- 
nations of  severity  and  indulgence,  the  existence  in  Par- 
liament of  a  powerful  section  who  had  at  every  step  of 
the  struggle  actively  supported  the  Americans  and  en- 
couraged them  to  resist,  the  existence  outside  Parlia- 
ment of  a  still  more  democratic  party  mainly  occupied 
with  political  agitation — it  was  these  things  which  had 
chiefly  lured  the  colonies  to  their  present  state  of  an- 
archy, had  rendered  all  resistance  to  authority  a  popular 
thing,  and  had  introduced  the  habit  of  questioning  the 
validity  of  Acts  of  Parliament.  The  evil,  however,  was 
accomplished.  The  plan  of  making  America  pay  for 
her  defence  was  virtually  abandoned,  and  the  ministers 
were  only  trying  feebly  and  ineffectively  to  uphold  the 
doctrine  of  the  Declaratory  Act,  that  Parliament  had 

upon  exportation  from  England  have  already  quoted  the  opinion 

and  applied  to  the  purpose  pro-  of  Franklin  to  much  the  same 

posed,  there  would  not  have  been  effect. 

any  opposition  made  to  the  Act.  l  See  Lord  North's  strong 
It  would  have  been  a  favour  to  statement  of  the  reluctance  with 
the  colonies.  The  saving  upon  which  he  maintained  any  part 
tea  would  have  been  more  than  of  the  duties.  Parl.  Hist.  xvi. 
the  whole  paid  on  the  other  854 ;  Cavendish  Debates,  i.  485, 
articles.  The  consumer  in  Ame-  486.  The  speech  of  George 
rica  would  have  paid  the  duty  Grenville  in  this  debate,  as  re- 
just  as  much  as  if  it  had  been  ported  by  Cavendish,  is  particu- 
paid  upon  importation.'  —  Hist.  larly  worthy  of  attention. 
of  Massachusetts  Bay,  p.  179.  I 


en.  xi.  AMERICA,    1769-1771.  135 

a  right  to  draw  a  revenue  from  America,  by  maintain- 
ing a  duty  which  was  in  full  accordance  with  American 
precedents  and  which  was  a  positive  boon  to  the  Ameri- 
can people. 

The  policy  was  not  quite  unsuccessful.  The  non- 
importation agreements  had  lately  been  so  formidable 
that  the  English  exports  to  America,  which  amounted 
to  2,378,OOOJ.  in  1768,  amounted  only  to  1,634,000/,  in 
1769  ;  l  but  the  merchants  in  the  colonies,  after  some 
hesitation,  now  resolved  to  abandon  these  agreements, 
and  commerce  with  England  resumed  its  old  activity. 
An  exception,  however,  was  still  made  in  the  case  of 
tea,  and  associations  were  formed  binding  all  classes  to 
abstain  from  that  beverage,  or  at  least  to  drink  only 
what  was  smuggled.  The  next  two  or  three  years  of 
colonial  history  were  somewhat  less  eventful,  though  it 
was  evident  that  the  spirit  of  insubordination  and  an- 
archy was  extending.  In  North  Carolina,  in  1 771 ,  some 
1,500  men,  complaining  of  extortions  and  oppressions 
of  their  local  courts,  rose  to  arms,  and  refused  to  pay 
taxes,  and  the  colony  was  rapidly  dividing  into  a  civil 
war.  The  Governor,  however,  at  the  head  of  rather 
more  than  1,000  militia,  completely  defeated  the  in- 
surgents in  a  pitched  battle.  Some  hundreds  were 
killed  or  wounded,  and  six  were  afterwards  hanged  for 
high  treason.  In  Massachusetts  the  troops  were  not 
again  brought  into  Boston,  but  Castle  William,  which 
commanded  the  harbour,  and  to  which  the  Boston  pa- 
triots had  once  been  so  anxious  to  relegate  them,  was 
placed  under  martial  law,  and  the  provincial  garrison 
was  withdrawn.  There  were  long  and  acrimonious  dis- 
putes between  Hutchinson  and  the  Massachusetts  As- 
sembly about  the  right  of  the  former  to  convene  the 
Assembly  at  Cambridge  instead  of  Boston ;  about  the 

1  Part.  Hist.  xvi.  855. 
11 


136        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.       en.  xj. 

extent  to  which  the  salaries  of  Crown  officers  should  be 
exempted  from  taxation ;  about  the  refusal  of  the  Go- 
vernor to  ratify  the  grant  of  certain  sums  of  money  to 
the  colonial  agents  in  England.  In  1772,  Hutchinson, 
to  the  great  indignation  of  the  colony,  informed  the 
Assembly  that,  as  his  salary  would  henceforth  be  paid 
by  the  Crown,  no  appropriation  would  be  required  for 
that  purpose.  Otis,  who  had  long  been  the  most  fiery 
of  the  Boston  demagogues,  had  now  nearly  lost  his  in- 
tellect as  well  as  his  influence;  and  John  Adams,  who 
was  a  far  abler  man,  had  for  a  time  retired  from  agita- 
tion, and  devoted  himself  to  his  profession.  Samuel 
Adams,  however,  still  retained  his  influence  in  the  As- 
sembly, and  he  was  unwearied  in  his  efforts  to  excite 
ill  feeling  against  England,  and  to  push  the  colony  into 
rebellion. 

In  Khode  Island  a  revenue  outrage  of  more  than 
common  daring  took  place.  A  ship  of  war,  called  the 
*  Gaspee,'  commanded  by  Lieutenant  Duddingston,  and 
carrying  eight  guns,  was  employed  under  the  royal 
commission  in  enforcing  the  revenue  Acts  along  the 
coast,  and  the  commander  is  said  to  have  discharged 
his  duty  with  a  zeal  that  often  outran  both  discretion 
and  law.  He  stopped  and  searched  every  ship  that 
entered  Narraganset  Bay  ;  compelled  all  ships  to  salute 
his  flag;  sent  a  captured  cargo  of  smuggled  rum,  con- 
trary to  law,  out  of  the  colony  to  Boston  on  the  ground 
that  it  could  not  be  safely  detained  in  Newport ;  seized 
more  than  one  vessel  upon  insufficient  evidence ; 
searched  for  smuggled  goods  with  what  was  considered 
unnecessary  violence,  and  made  himself  extremely  ob- 
noxious to  the  colony,  in  which  smuggling  was  one  of 
the  most  flourishing  and  most  popular  of  trades.  The 
Chief  Justice  gave  an  opinion  that  the  commander  of 
one  of  his  Majesty's  ships  could  exercise  no  authority 
in  the  colony  without  having  previously  applied  to  the 


ca.  xi.  THE   'GASPEE.'  137 

Governor,  and  shown  him  his  warrant.  Duddingston 
appealed  to  the  Admiral  at  Boston,  who  fully  justified 
his  conduct,  and  an  angry  altercation  ensued  between 
the  civil  and  naval  authorities.  On  June  9,  1772,  the 
4  Gaspee,'  when  chasing  a  suspected  vessel,  ran  aground 
on  a  shoal  in  the  river  some  miles  from  Providence,  and 
the  ship  which  had  escaped  brought  the  news  to  that 
town.  Soon  after  a  drum  was  beat  through  the  streets, 
and  all  persons  who  were  disposed  to  assist  in  the  de- 
struction of  the  King's  ship  were  summoned  to  meet  at 
the  house  of  a  prominent  citizen.  There  appears  to 
have  been  no  concealment  or  disguise,  and  shortly  after 
ten  at  night  eight  boats,  full  of  armed  men,  started  with 
muffled  oars  on  the  expedition.  They  reached  the 
stranded  vessel  in  the  deep  darkness  of  the  early  morn- 
ing. Twice  the  sentinel  on  board  vainly  hailed  them, 
when  Duddingston  himself  appeared  in  his  shirt  upon 
the  gunwale  and  asked  who  it  was  that  approached. 
The  leader  of  the  party  answered  with  a  profusion  of 
oaths  that  he  was  the  sheriff  of  the  county  come  to 
arrest  him,  and  while  he  was  speaking  one  of  his  men 
deliberately  shot  the  lieutenant,  who  fell  badly  wounded 
on  the  deck.  In  another  minute  the  '  Gaspee '  was 
boarded.  The  crew  were  soon  overpowered,  bound,  and 
placed  upon  the  shore.  Duddingston,  his  wounds 
having  been  dressed,  was  landed  at  a  neighbouring 
house ;  the  party  then  set  fire  to  the  '  Gaspee/  and 
while  its  flames  announced  to  the  whole  country  the 
success  of  their  expedition,  they  returned  in  the  broad 
daylight  to  Providence.  Large  rewards  were  offered 
by  the  British  Government  for  their  detection;  but, 
though  they  were  universally  known,  no  evidence  could 
be  obtained,  and  the  outrage  was  entirely  unpunished.1 

1  A  full  account  of  this  trans-  of  Rhode  Island,  ii.  309-320. 
action  will  be  found  in  Mr.  Mr.  Arnold  has  given  a  curioua 
Arnold's  very  interesting  History  letter  describing  it,  by  Ephraim 


138         ENGLAND   IN  TELE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.      CH.  xi. 

An  American  historian  complains  that  this  event,  though 
due  to  a  mere  '  sudden  impulse/  inspired  at  least  one 
English  statesman  with  a  deep  hostility  to  the  charter 
of  the  colony,  according  to  which  Governor,  Assembly, 
and  Council  were  all  elected  directly  by  the  people.1 

It  is  a  curious  coincidence  that,  just  before  this  out- 
rage took  place,  the  British  Parliament  had  passed  an 
Act  for  the  protection  of  his  Majesty's  ships,  dockyards, 
and  naval  stores,  by  which  their  destruction  was  made 
a  felony,  and  the  ministry  were  empowered,  if  they 
pleased,  to  try  those  who  were  accused  of  such  acts  in 
England.2  This  law,  though  it  applied  to  the  colonies, 
was  not  made  with  any  special  reference  to  them,  but 
it  became  one  of  their  great  grievances.  Perhaps  the 
state  of  feeling  disclosed  in  the  town  of  Providence  at 
the  time  of  the  destruction  of  the  '  Gaspee,'  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  strongest  argument  in  its  defence. 

A  considerable  step  towards  uniting  the  colonies 
was  taken  in  this  year  and  in  1773  by  the  appointment 
in  Massachusetts,  Virginia,  and  some  other  colonies  of 
committees  specially  charged  with  the  task  of  collecting 
and  publishing  colonial  grievances,  maintaining  a  cor- 
respondence between  the  different  provinces,  and  pro- 
curing authentic  intelligence  of  all  the  acts  of  the 
British  Parliament  or  Ministry  relating  to  them.  In 
England  they  were  already  represented  by  agents  of 
great  ability,  the  most  prominent  being  Benjamin 
Franklin,  who  at  this  time  possessed  a  greater  reputa- 
tion than  any  other  living  American. 

He  was  born  in  1706,  and  was  therefore  now  in  the 
decline  of  life.  A  younger  son  in  a  large  and  poor 
family,  ill  treated  by  his  elder  brother,  and  little  favoured 
by  casual  good  fortune,  he  had  risen  by  his  own  energies 


Bowen,  one  of  the  party  who          1  Bancroft,  iii.  461. 
captured  the  '  Gaspee.'  *  12  Geo.  III.  c.  24. 


CH.  «.  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN.  139 

from  a  humble  journeyman  printer  at  Boston  and  Phila- 
delphia to  a  foremost  place  among  his  countrymen ; 
ar»d  he  enjoyed  a  reputation  which  the  lapse  of  a  cen- 
tury has  scarcely  dimmed.  Franklin  is,  indeed,  one  of 
the  very  small  class  of  men  who  can  be  said  to  have 
added  something  of  real  value  to  the  art  of  living. 
Very  few  writers  have  left  so  many  profound  and  origi- 
nal observations  on  the  causes  of  success  in  life,  and  on 
the  best  means  of  cultivating  the  intellect  and  the  cha- 
racter. To  extract  from  surrounding  circumstances  the 
largest  possible  amount  of  comfort  and  rational  enjoy- 
ment, was  the  ideal  he  placed  before  himself  and  others, 
and  he  brought  to  its  attainment  c/ne  of  the  shrewdest 
and  most  inventive  of  human  intellects,  one  of  the 
calmest  and  best  balanced  of  human  characters.  *  It  is 
hard,'  he  once  wrote,  *  for  an  empty  sack  to  stand  up- 
right ; '  and  it  was  his  leading  principle  that  a  certain 
amount  of  material  prosperity  is  the  almost  indispen- 
sable condition  as  well  as  the  chief  reward  of  integrity 
of  character.  He  had  no  religious  fervour,  and  no  sym- 
pathy with  those  who  appeal  to  strong  passions  or  heroic 
self-abnegation  ;  but  his  busy  and  somewhat  pedestrian 
intellect  was  ceaselessly  employed  in  devising  useful 
schemes  for  the  benefit  of  mankind.  He  founded  so- 
cieties for  mutual  improvement,  established  the  first 
circulating  library  in  America,  introduced  new  methods 
for  extinguishing  fires,  warming  rooms,  paving  and 
lighting  the  streets,  gave  a  great  impulse  to  education 
in  Pennsylvania,  took  part  in  many  schemes  for  strength- 
ening the  defences  and  improving  the  police  of  the  colony, 
and  was  the  soul  of  more  than  one  enterprise  of  public 
charity.  *  Poor  Richard's  Almanac,'  which  he  began 
in  1732,  and  which  he  continued  for  twenty-five  years, 
attained  an  annual  circulation  of  near  10,000,  and.  he 
made  it  a  vehicle  for  diffusing  through  the  colonies  a 
vast  amount  of  practical  knowledge  and  homely  wisdom. 


140   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.    en.  TT. 

His  brother  printed  the  fourth  newspaper  which 
ever  appeared  in  America,  and  Franklin  wrote  in  it 
when  still  a  boy.  He  had  afterwards  a  newspaper  of 
his  own,  and  there  were  few  questions  of  local  politics 
in  which  he  did  not  take  an  active  part.  He  was  very 
ambitious  of  literary  success,  and  within  certain  limits 
he  has  rarely  been  surpassed.  How  completely  blind 
he  was  to  the  sublime  and  the  poetical  in  literature,  he 
indeed  conclusively  showed  when  he  tried  to  improve 
the  majestic  language  of  the  Book  of  Job  or  the  Lord's 
Prayer  by  translating  them  into  ordinary  eighteenth- 
century  phraseology ;  but  on  his  own  subjects  no  one 
wrote  better.  His  style  was  always  terse,  luminous, 
simple,  pregnant  with  meaning,  eminently  persuasive. 
There  is  scarcely  an  obscure  or  involved  or  superfluous 
sentence,  scarcely  an  ambiguous  term  in  his  works,  and 
not  a  trace  of  that  false  and  inflated  rhetoric  which  has 
spoilt  much  American  writing,  and  from  which  the 
addresses  of  Washington  himself  are  not  quite  free. 
He  was  a  most  skilful  and  plausible  reasoner,  abound- 
ing in  ingenious  illustration,  and  with  a  happy  gift  of 
carrying  into  difficult  and  intricate  subjects  that  trans- 
parent simplicity  of  style  which  is,  perhaps,  the  highest 
reach  of  art.  At  the  same  time  his  researches  and 
writings  on  electricity  gave  him  a  wide  reputation  in 
the  scientific  world,  and  in  1752  his  great  discovery  of 
the  lightning  conductor  made  his  name  universally 
known  through  Europe.  It  was  indeed  pre-eminently 
fitted  to  strike  the  imagination ;  and  it  was  a  strange 
freak  of  fortune  that  one  of  the  most  sublime  and  poetic 
of  scientific  discoveries  should  have  fallen  to  the  lot  of 
one  of  the  most  prosaic  of  great  men. 

In  every  phase  of  the  struggle  with  England  he 
took  a  prominent  part ;  and  it  may  be  safely  asserted 
that  if  he  had  been  able  to  guide  American  opinion,  it 
would  never  have  ended  in  revolution.  During  a  great 


CH.  xi.  BENJAMIN  FEANKLIN.  141 

portion  of  the  struggle  he  always  professed  a  warm 
attachment  for  England  and  the  English  Constitution. 
In  conversation  with  Burke  he  expressed  the  greatest 
concern  at  the  impending  separation  of  the  two  coun- 
tries ;  predicted  that  '  America  would  never  again  see 
such  happy  days  as  she  had  passed  under  the  protection 
of  England,  and  observed  that  ours  was  the  only  in- 
stance of  a  great  empire  in  which  the  most  distant  parts 
and  members  had  been  as  well  governed  as  the  metro- 
polis and  its  vicinage.' 1  A  man  so  eminently  wise  and 
temperate  must  have  clearly  seen  that  colonies  situated 
3,000  miles  from  the  mother  country,  doubling  their 
population  every  twenty-five  years,  possessing  repre- 
sentative institutions  of  the  freest  and  most  democratic 
type,  and  inhabited  by  a  people  who,  from  their  circum- 
stances and  their  religion,  carried  the  sentiment  of 
independence  to  the  highest  point,  were  never  in  any 
real  danger  of  political  servitude,  and  that  there  was  no 
difference  between  America  and  England  which  reason- 
able men  might  not  easily  have  compromised.  Per- 
sonally, no  one  had  less  sympathy  than  Franklin  with 
anarchy,  violence,  and  declamation,  and  in  some  respects 
his  natural  leaning  was  towards  the  Tories.  It  is 
remarkable  that  when  he  was  in  England  at  the  time 
of  the  Middlesex  election,  his  sympathies  ran  strongly 
against  Wilkes,  he  spoke  with  indignation  of  the  punish- 
ment that  must  await  a  people  *  who  are  ungratefully 
abusing  the  best  Constitution  and  the  best  King  any  na- 
tion was  ever  blessed  with ; ' 2  and  he  fully  adopted  the 
Tory  maxim  that  the  whole  political  power  of  a  nation 
belongs  of  right  to  the  freeholders.3  He  held  under 

1  Burke's   'Appeal  from  the       404. 

New  to  the  Old  Whigs.'    Works,  a  •  All  the  land  in  England  is 

vi.    122.       See,  too,  Franklin's  in  fact  represented.  ...  As  to 

Works,  i.  413,  414.  those  who  have  no  landed  pro- 

2  Franklin's  Works,  vii.  399-  perty  in  a  county,  the  allowing 


142   ENGLAND 'IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  «. 

the  Government  the  position  of  Postmaster-General  for 
America.  He  was  once  thought  of  as  Under-Secretary 
of  State  for  the  colonies  under  Lord  Hillsborough,  and 
his  son  was  royal  Governor  of  New  Jersey. 

His  writings  are  full  of  suggestions  which,  if  they 
had  been  acted  on,  might  have  averted  the  disruption. 
As  we  have  already  seen,  he  had  advocated  an  union  of 
the  colonies  for  defensive  purposes  as  early  as  1754, 
and  in  1764  had  regarded  with  great  equanimity,  and 
even  approval,  the  possible  establishment  of  an  English 
army  in  America,  paid  for  by  duties  imposed  on  the 
colonies.  He  opposed  the  Stamp  Act ;  but  it  is  quite 
evident,  from  his  conduct,  that  he  neither  expected  nor 
desired  that  it  should  be  resisted.  In  one  of  his 
writings,  he  very  wisely  suggested  that  England  should 
give  up  her  trade  monopoly,  and  that  America  should 
in  return  agree  to  pay  a  fixed  annual  sum  for  the 
military  purposes  of  the  Empire.  In  another,  he 
advocated  a  legislative  union,  which  would  have  en- 
abled the  English  Parliament,  without  injustice,  to  tax 
America.  He  strongly  maintained  the  reality  of  the 
distinction  between  internal  and  external  taxation,  and 
asserted  with  great  truth  that  '  the  real  grievance  is  not 
that  Britain  puts  duties  upon  her  own  manufactures 
exported  to  us,  but  that  she  forbids  us  to  buy  like 
manufactures  from  any  other  country.5 

He  was  Agent  for  Pennsylvania  at  the  time  of  the 
Stamp  Act,  and,  in  his  examination  soon  after,  before  the 
House  of  Commons,  he  defended  the  colonial  cause  with 
an  ability,  a  presence  of  mind,  and  a  moderation  that 
produced  a  great  impression  upon  Parliament.  His  many 
tracts  in  defence  of  their  cause,  though  they  are  very 
far  from  a  fair  or  candid  statement  even  of  the  facts  of 
the  case,  were  undoubtedly  the  ablest  and  most  plausible 

them  to  vote  for  legislators  is  an  vations,'  Franklin's  Works,  iv, 
Impropriety.' — 'Political  Obser-  221. 


CH.  xi.  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN.  143 

arguments  advanced  on  the  American  side.  In  1767  he 
mentioned  the  assiduity  with  which  the  French  ambas- 
sador was  courting  him,  and  he  added :  '  I  fancy  that 
intriguing  nation  would  like  very  well  to  meddle  on 
occasion  and  blow  up  the  coals  between  Britain  and  her 
colonies  ;  but  I  hope  we  shall  give  them  no  opportunity.' 1 
In  his  confidential  correspondence  with  American  politi- 
cians, he  constantly  advocated  moderation  and  patience. 
*  Our  great  security,'  he  wrote  in  1773,  'lies  in  our 
growing  strength  both  in  numbers  and  wealth,  that 
creates  an  increasing  ability  of  assisting  this  nation  in 
its  wars,  which  will  make  us  more  respectable,  our 
friendship  more  valued,  and  our  enmity  feared.  .  .  . 
In  confidence  of  this  coming  change  in  our  favour,  I 
think  our  prudence  is,  meanwhile,  to  be  quiet,  only 
holding  up  our  rights  and  claims  on  all  occasions  .  .  . 
but  bearing  patiently  the  little  present  notice  that  is 
taken  of  them.  They  will  all  have  their  weight  in  time, 
and  that  time  is  at  no  great  distance.' 2  '  There  seems 
to  be  among  us  some  violent  spirits  who  are  for  an 
immediate  rupture ;  but  I  trust  the  general  prudence 
of  our  country  will  see  that  by  our  growing  strength 
we  advance  fast  to  a  situation  in  which  our  claims  must 
be  allowed ;  that  by  a  premature  struggle  we  may  be 
crippled  and  kept  down  another  age  .  .  .  that  between 
governed  and  governing  every  mistake  in  government, 
every  encroachment  on  right,  is  not  worth  a  rebellion 
.  .  .  remembering  withal  that  this  Protestant  country 
(our  mother,  though  lately  an  unkind  one)  is  worth 
preserving,  and  that  her  weight  in  the  scale  of  Europe, 
anl  her  safety  in  a  great  degree,  may  depend  on  our 
u:iion  with  her/  3 

1  Franklin's  Works,  vii.  357.  then  returning  to  America.   '  Go 

2  Ibid.    viii.    30,    31.     After  home  and  tell  your  countrymen 
the   Stamp  Act,    Franklin    ex-  to  get  children  as  fast  as  they 
pressed  his  opinion  in  a  pithy  can.' 

sentence  to  Ingersoll,  who  was          *  Ibid.  pp.  78,  79. 


144   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   en.  xi. 

In  addition  to  his  position  of  Agent  for  Pennsylvania, 
he  became  Agent  for  New  Jersey,  for  Georgia,  and  in 
1770  for  Massachusetts.  His  relations,  however,  with 
the  latter  colony  were  not  always  absolutely  cordial. 
His  religious  scepticism,  his  known  hatred  of  war,  his 
personal  relations  to  the  British  Government,  his  dislike 
to  violent  counsels,  and  to  that  exaggerated  and  de- 
clamatory rhetoric  which  was  peculiarly  popular  at 
Boston,  all  placed  him  somewhat  out  of  harmony  with 
his  constituents;  and  although  they  were  justly  proud 
of  his  European  reputation,  even  this  was  sometimes  a 
cause  of  suspicion.  They  felt  that  he,  and  he  alone,  of 
living  Americans,  by  his  own  unassisted  merit,  had  won 
a  great  position  in  England,  and  they  doubted  whether 
he  could  be  as  devoted  to  their  cause  as  men  whose 
reputation  was  purely  provincial.  In  1771,  Arthur 
Lee,  of  Virginia,  who  was  fully  identified  with  the 
extreme  party,  was  appointed  his  colleague,  and  there 
were  several  other  symptoms  that  Franklin  was  looked 
on  with  some  distrust.  The  suspicions  of  his  sincerity 
were,  however,  wholly  groundless.  His  heart  was 
warmly  in  the  American  cause,  and  although  he  would 
have  gladly  moderated  the  policy  of  his  countrymen, 
he  was  by  no  means  disposed  to  suffer  himself  to  be 
stranded  and  distanced.  His  views  became  more  ex- 
tensive, and  his  language  more  emphatic ;  he  now  main- 
tained with  great  ability  the  position  that  the  colonies, 
like  Hanover,  or  like  Scotland  before  the  Union,  though 
they  were  subject  to  the  English  king,  were  wholly  in- 
dependent of  the  British  Legislature;  and  in  1773  he 
was  concerned  in  a  transaction  which  placed  him  at  open 
war  with  English  opinion. 

It  had  been  for  a  long  time  the  habit  of  Hutchinson, 
the  Governor-General  of  Massachusetts ;  of  Oliver,  who 
was  now  Lieutenant-Governor ;  and  of  some  other  poli- 
ticians of  the  province  who  were  attached  to  the  Crown, 


en.  *i.  HUTCHINSON'S  LETTERS.  145 

to  carry  on  a  strictly  private  and  confidential  correspond- 
ence about  the  state  of  the  colonies  with  Whately,  who 
had  formerly  been  private  secretary  to  George  Grenville. 
In  June  1772  Whately  died,  and  in  December,  by  some 
person  and  some  means  that  have  never  been  certainly 
disclosed,  the  letters  of  his  American  correspondents 
were  stolen  and  carried  to  Franklin.  The  letters  of 
Hutchinson  had,  with  one  exception,  been  written  be- 
fore his  appointment  as  Governor,  but  at  a  time  when 
he  held  high  office  in  the  colony,  and  they  were  written 
with  the  perfect  freedom  of  confidential  intercourse. 
Whately,  though  peculiarly  conversant  with  colonial 
matters,  held  at  tins  time  no  office  under  the  Crown, 
and  was  a  simple  member  of  the  Opposition.  Hutchin- 
son, in  writing  to  him,  dilated  upon  the  turbulent  and 
rebellious  disposition  of  Boston,  the  factious  character 
of  the  local  agitators,  the  weakness  of  the  Executive, 
the  necessity  of  a  military  force  to  support  the  Govern- 
ment, and  the  excessive  predominance  of  the  democratic 
element  in  the  constitution  of  Massachusetts.  '  I  never 
think,'  he  wrote  in  the  letter  which  was  afterwards 
most  violently  attacked,  *  of  the  measures  necessary  for 
the  peace  and  good  order  of  the  colonies  without  pain. 
There  must  be  an  abridgment  of  what  are  called  English 
liberties.  ...  I  doubt  whether  it  is  possible  to  project 
a  system  of  government  in  which  a  colony  3,000  miles 
distant  from  the  parent  State  shall  enjoy  all  the  liberty 
of  the  parent  State.  ...  I  wish  the  good  of  the  colony 
when  I  wish  to  see  some  further  restraint  of  liberty 
rather  than  the  connection  with  the  parent  State  should 
be  broken,  for  I  am  sure  such  a  breach  must  prove  the 
ruin  of  the  colony.'  Oliver  argued  with  more  detail 
that  the  Council  or  Upper  Chamber  should  consist  ex- 
clusively of  landed  proprietors,  that  the  Crown  officers 
should  have  salaries  independent  of  popular  favour,  that 
the  popular  election  of  grand  juries  should  be  abolished, 


146    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CM.  xi. 

and  that  there  should  be  a  colonial  representation  in 
the  English  Parliament.  All  this  appears  to  have 
been  most  honestly  written,  but  it  was  written  without 
the  reserve  and  the  caution  which  would  have  been 
maintained  in  letters  intended  to  be  published.  Both 
Hutchinson  and  Oliver  impressed  on  their  correspon- 
dent their  desire  that  these  letters  should  be  deemed 
strictly  confidential.1  They  were  brought  to  Franklin 
as  political  information  for  his  perusal.  He  at  once 
perceived  the  advantage  they  would  give  to  the  popular 
party,  and  he  asked  and  obtained  permission  to  send 
them  to  Massachusetts  on  condition  that  they  should 
not  be  printed  or  copied ;  that  they  should  be  shown 
only  to  a  few  of  the  leading  people,  that  they  should  be 
eventually  returned,  and  that  the  source  from  which 
they  were  obtained  should  be  concealed. 

The  letters  were  accordingly  sent  to  Thomas  Gush- 
ing, the  Speaker  of  the  Assembly  of  Massachusetts,  and, 
as  might  have  been  expected,  they  soon  created  a  general 
ferment.  As  Franklin  acutely  wrote,  *  there  was  no 
restraint  proposed  to  talking  of  them,  but  only  to  copy- 
ing.' They  were  shown  to  many  of  the  leading  agita- 
tors. •  John  Adams  was  suffered  to  take  them  with  him 
on  his  judicial  circuit,  and  they  were  finally  brought 
before  the  Assembly  in  a  secret  sitting.  The  Assembly 
at  once  carried  resolutions  censuring  them  as  designed  ' 
to  sow  discord  and  encourage  the  oppressive  acts  of  the 
British  Government,  to  introduce  arbitrary  power  into 
the  province  and  subvert  its  constitution,  and  with  the 
concurrence  of  the  Council  it  petitioned  the  King  to 
remove  Hutchinson  and  Oliver  from  the  Government. 
The  letters  were  soon  generally  known.  The  sole  ob- 
stacle to  their  diffusion  was  the  promise  that  they  should 
not  be  copied  or  printed,  and  it  was  not  likely  that  this 

1  See  the  letters  of  Oct.  26,  1769,  and  May  7,  1767. 


en.  xi.       PUBLICATION  OF  THE  LETTERS.        147 

would  be  observed.  According  to  one  account,1  copies 
were  produced  which  were  falsely  said  to  have  come  by 
the  last  mail  from  England,  and  which  were  therefore 
not  included  under  the  original  promise.  According  to 
another  account,2  Hancock,  one  of  the  leading  patriots, 
took  *  advantage  of  the  implied  permission  of  Hutchin- 
son '  to  have  copies  made.  Hutchinson  had  indeed  been 
challenged  with  the  letters,  and  been  asked  for  copies  of 
them  and  of  such  others  as  he  should  think  proper  to 
communicate.  After  some  delay,  he  answered  eva- 
sively, *  If  you  desire  copies  with  a  view  to  make  them 
public,  the  originals  are  more  proper  for  the  purpose 
than  the  copies,'  and  this  sentence  appears  to  have  been 
considered  a  sufficient  authorisation.  The  letters  were 
accordingly  printed  and  scattered  broadcast  over  the 
colonies. 

When  the  printed  copies  arrived  in  England,  they 
excited  great  astonishment,  and  William  Whately,  the 
brother  and  executor  of  the  late  Secretary,  was  filled 
with  a  very  natural  consternation  at  a  theft  which  was 
likely  to  have  such  important  consequences,  and  for 
which  public  opinion  was  inclined  to  make  him  respon- 
sible. He,  in  his  turn,  suspected  a  certain  Mr.  Temple, 
who  had  been  allowed  to  look  through  the  papers  of  his 
deceased  brother,  for  the  purpose  of  perusing  one  re- 
lating to  the  colonies,  and  a  duel  ensued,  in  which 
Whately  was  wounded.  Franklin  then,  for  the  first 
time,  in  a  letter  to  a  newspaper,  disclosed  the  part  he 
had  taken.  He  stated  that  he,  and  he  alone,  had  ob- 
tained and  transmitted  to  Boston  the  letters  in  question, 
that  they  had  never  passed  into  the  hands  of  William 
Whately,  and  that  it  was  therefore  impossible  either  that 
Whately  could  have  communicated  them  or  that  Temple 
could  have  taken  them  from  his  papers.  There  is  some 

1  Sparks'  Continuation  of  Franklin's  Life.  2  Bancroft. 


148    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xi, 

reason  to  believe  that  the  original  owner  had  left  them 
carelessly  in  a  public  office,  from  whence  they  had  been 
abstracted,  but  the  mystery  was  never  decisively  solved. 
Franklin  always  maintained  that  in  this  matter 
he  had  simply  done  his  duty,  and  that  his  conduct  was 
perfectly  honourable.  The  letters,  he  said,  *  were  written 
by  public  officers  to  persons  in  public  stations,  on  public 
affairs,  and  intended  to  procure  public  measures.'  They 
were  brought  to  him  as  the  Agent  for  Massachusetts, 
and  it  was  his  duty  as  such  to  communicate  to  his  con- 
stituents intelligence  that  was  of  such  vital  importance 
to  their  affairs.  He  even  urged,  more  ingeniously  than 
plausibly,  that  he  was  animated  by  a  virtuous  desire  to 
lessen  the  breach  between  England  and  the  colonies. 
Like  most  Americans,  he  said,  he  had  viewed  with  in- 
dignation the  coercive  measures  which  emanated,  as  he 
supposed,  from  the  British  Government,  but  his  feelings 
were  much  changed  when  it  was  proved  that  their  real 
origin  might  be  traced  to  Americans  holding  high  offices 
in  their  native  country.  It  was  to  convince  him  of  this 
truth  that  the  letters  had  been  originally  brought  to  him. 
It  was  to  spread  a  similar  conviction  among  his  country- 
men that  he  had  sent  them  across  the  Atlantic.  With 
more  force  his  apologists  have  urged  that  the  sanctity  of 
private  correspondence  was  not  then  regarded  as  it  is 
regarded  now,  and  that  the  Government  itself  continu- 
ally tampered  with  it  for  political  purposes.1  In  1766 
the  Duke  of  Bedford  discovered,  to  his  great  indigna- 
tion, that  a  letter  which  he  Lad  written  to  the  Duke  of 
Grafton  had  been  opened;  and  among  the  items  of 
secret-service  money  during  the  administration  of  Gren- 
ville  was  a  sum  to  a  Post  Office  official  *  for  engraving 
the  many  seals  we  are  obliged  to  make  use  of. ' 2  If 

1  See  vol.  iii.  p.  249.    Burke's          *  Orenville  Papers,  iii.  99, 311, 
Works,  ix.  148.  312. 


CH.  xi,  FRANKLIN'S  CONDUCT.  149 

Government  was  not  ashamed  to  resort  to  such  methods, 
was  it  reasonable  to  expect  that  an  agent  who  was  en- 
deavouring in  a  hostile  country  and  against  overwhelm- 
ing obstacles  to  maintain  the  interests  of  his  colony 
would  be  more  scrupulous  ?  Letters  of  Franklin  him- 
self, written  to  the  colony,  had  been  opened,  and  their 
contents  had  been  employed  for  political  purposes. 
Hufchinson  had  been  concerned  in  this  proceeding,  and 
could  therefore  hardly  complain  that  his  own  weapons 
were  turned  against  himself.1 

These  considerations,  no  doubt,  palliate  the  conduct 
of  Franklin.  Whether  they  do  more  than  palliate  it, 
must  be  left  to  the  judgment  of  the  reader.  In  England 
that  conduct  was  judged  with  the  utmost  severity.  For 
the  purpose  of  ruining  honourable  officials,  it  was  said, 
their  most  confidential  letters,  written  several  years 
before  to  a  private  Member  of  Parliament  who  had  at 
that  time  no  connection  with  the  Government,  had  been 
deliberately  stolen  ;  and  although  the  original  thief  was 
undiscovered,  the  full  weight  of  the  guilt  and  of  the  dis- 
honour rested  upon  Franklin.  He  was  perfectly  aware 
that  the  letters  had  been  written  in  the  strictest  confi- 
dence, that  they  had  been  dishonestly  obtained  without 
the  knowledge  either  of  the  person  who  received  them 
or  of  the  persons  who  wrote  them,  and  that  their  ex- 
posure would  be  a  deadly  injury  to  the  writers.  Under 
these  circumstances  he  procured  them.  Under  these 
circumstances  he  sent  them  to  a  small  group  of  politi- 
cians whom  he  knew  to  be  the  bitterest  enemies  of  the 
Governor,  and  one  of  the  consequences  of  his  conduct 
was  a  duel  in  which  the  brother  of  the  man  whose  private 
papers  had  been  stolen  was  nearly  killed.  Any  man  of 
high  and  sensitive  honour,  it  was  said,  would  sooner 


1  See  Franklin's  own  vindica-       accompanying  notes.    Works,  iv, 
tion  of  his  proceedings,  with  the      404-455. 


150         ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.      CH.  xi. 

have  put  his  hand  in  the  fire  than  have  been  concerned 
in  such  a  transaction.  When  the  petition  for  the  re- 
moval of  Hutchinson  and  Oliver  arrived,  the  Govern- 
ment referred  it  to  the  Committee  of  the  Privy  Council, 
that  the  allegations  might  be  publicly  examined  with 
counsel  on  either  side,  and  the  case  excited  an  interest 
which  had  been  rarely  paralleled.  No  less  than  thirty- 
five  Privy  Councillors  attended.  Among  the  distin- 
guished strangers  who  crowded  the  Bar  were  Burke, 
Priestley,  and  Jeremy  Bentham.  Dunning  and  Lee, 
who  spoke  for  the  petitioners,  appear  to  have  made  no 
impression ;  while  on  the  other  side,  Wedderburn,  the 
Solicitor-General,  made  one  of  his  most  brilliant  but 
most  virulent  speeches.  After  a  brief  but  eloquent 
eulogy  of  the  character  and  services  of  Hutchinson,  he 
passed  to  the  manner  in  which  the  letters  were  procured, 
and  turning  to  Franklin,  who  stood  before  him,  he  de- 
livered an  invective  which  appears  to  have  electrified 
his  audience.  '  How  the  letters  came  into  the  possession 
of  anyone  but  the  right  owners,'  he  said,  '  is  still  a  mys- 
tery for  Dr.  Franklin  to  explain.  He  was  not  the 
rightful  owner,  and  they  could  not  have  come  into  his 
hands  by  fair  means.  Nothing  will  acquit  Dr.  Franklin 
of  the  charge  of  obtaining  them  by  fraudulent  or  corrupt 
means  for  the  most  malignant  of  purposes,  unless  he 
stole  them  from  the  person  who  stole  them.  I  hope,  my 
Lords,  you  will  brand  this  man  for  the  honour  of  this 
country,  of  Europe,  and  of  mankind.  ...  Into  what 
country  will  the  fabricator  of  this  iniquity  hereafter  go 
with  unembarrassed  face  ?  Men  will  watch  him  with  a 
jealous  eye.  They  will  hide  their  papers  from  him,  and 
lock  up  their  escritoires.  Having  hitherto  aspired  after 
fame  by  his  writings,  he  will  henceforth  esteem  it  a  libel 
to  be  called  a  man  of  letters — homo  trium  literarum.1  But 


1  Fur— a  thief. 


en   XT.  WEDDERB URN'S  INVECTIVE.  151 

he  not  only  took  away  those  papers  from  one  brother — 
he  kept  himself  concealed  till  he  nearly  occasioned  the 
murder  of  another.  It  is  impossible  to  read  his  account, 
expressive  of  the  coolest  and  most  deliberate  malice, 
without  horror.  Amid  these  tragical  events,  of  one  per- 
son nearly  murdered,  of  another  answerable  for  the  issue, 
of  a  worthy  Governor  hurt  in  his  dearest  interests,  the 
fate  of  America  in  suspense — here  is  a  man  who,  with 
the  utmost  insensibility  of  remorse,  stands  up  and  avows 
himself  the  author  of  all.  I  can  compare  him  only  to 
Zanga  in  Dr.  Young's  "  Revenge" : 

Know  then,  'twas  I — 

I  forged  the  letter.    I  disposed  the  picture, 
I  hated,  I  despised,  and  I  destroy. 

I  ask,  my  Lords,  whether  the  revengeful  temper  at- 
tributed by  poetic  fiction  only  to  the  bloody  African,  is 
not  surpassed  by  the  coolness  and  apathy  of  the  wily 
American  ?  ' 

The  scene  was  a  very  strange  one,  and  it  is  well 
suited  to  the  brush  of  an  historical  painter.  Franklin 
was  now  an  old  man  of  sixty-seven,  the  greatest  writer, 
the  greatest  philosopher  America  had  produced,  a 
member  of  some  of  the  chief  scientific  societies  in 
Europe,  the  accredited  representative  of  the  most  im- 
portant of  the  colonies  of  America,  and  for  nearly  an 
hour  and  in  the  midst  of  the  most  distinguished  of 
living  Englishmen  he  was  compelled  to  hear  himself 
denounced  as  a  thief  or  the  accomplice  of  thieves.  He 
stood  there  conspicuous  and  erect,  and  without  moving 
a  muscle,  amid  the  torrent  of  invective,  but  his  apparent 
composure  was  shared  by  few  who  were  about  him. 
With  the  single  exception  of  Lord  North,  the  Privy 
Councillors  who  were  present  lost  all  dignity  and  all 
self-respect.  They  laughed  aloud  at  each  sarcastic  sally 
of  Wedderburn.  *  The  indecency  of  their  behaviour,'  in 
12 


152         ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.      CK.  xi. 

the  words  of  Shelburne,  '  exceeded,  as  is  agreed  on  all 
hands,  that  of  any  committee  of  elections; J  and  Fox,  in 
a  speech  which  he  made  as  late  as  1803,  reminded  the 
House  how  on  that  memorable  occasion  '  all  men  tossed 
up  their  hats  and  clapped  their  hands  in  boundless 
delight  at  Mr.  Wedderburn's  speech/  The  Committee 
at  once  voted  that  the  petition  of  the  Massachusetts 
Assembly  was  '  false,  groundless,  and  scandalous,  and 
calculated  only  for  the  seditious  purpose  of  keeping  up 
a  spirit  of  clamour  and  discontent  in  the  province.' 
The  King  in  Council  confirmed  the  report,  and  Franklin 
was  igiiorniniously  dismissed  from  his  office  of  Post- 
master. It  was  an  office  which  had  yielded  no  revenue 
before  he  had  received  it,  but  which  his  admirable 
organisation  had  made  lucrative  and  important.  The 
colonists  accepted  the  insults  directed  against  their  great 
representative  as  directed  against  themselves,1  and  from 
this  time  the  most  sagacious  of  American  leaders  had  a 
deep  personal  grudge  against  the  British  Government.2 
In  the  meantime  a  serious  attempt  was  made  to 
make  the  tea  duty  a  reality.  About  seventeen  million 
pounds  of  tea  lay  unsold  in  the  warehouses  of  the  East 
India  Company.  The  Company  was  at  this  time  in  ex- 
treme financial  embarrassment,  almost  amounting  to 
bankruptcy,  and  in  order  to  assist  it  the  whole  duty 
which  had  formerly  been  imposed  on  the  exportation  to 
America  was  remitted.3  Hitherto  the  Company  had 
been  obliged  to  send  their  tea  to  England,  where  it  was 
sold  by  public  sale  to  merchants  and  dealers,  and  by 


1  On  the  extraordinary  popu-  19.     Chatham  Correspondence, 
larity  of  Franklin  at  this  time,  iv.  322,  323. 

Bee  the  letter  of  Dr.  Eush,  quoted  8  By    the    previous    law    (12 

in   Sparks'  Continztation  of  the  Geo.  III.  c.  60)  a  drawback  of 

Life  of  Franklin.  three-fifths  of  the  duty  had  been 

2  Life  of  Franklin.  Campbell's  allowed. 
Lives  of  the  Chancellors,  viii.  14- 


CB.  xi,  THE  TEA  SENT  TO  BOSTON.  153 

them  exported  to  the  colonies.  The  Company  were 
now  permitted  to  export  tea  direct  from  their  ware- 
houses on  their  own  account  on  obtaining  a  licence  from 
the  Treasury,1  and  they  accordingly  selected  their  own 
agents  in  the  different  colonies.  As  the  East  India 
Company  had  of  late  been  brought  to  a  great  extent 
under  the  direction  of  the  Government,  the  consignees 
were  such  as  favoured  the  Administration,  and  in  Boston 
they  included  the  two  sons  of  Hutchinson,  Several 
ships  freighted  with  tea  were  sent  to  the  colonies,  and 
the  Government  hoped,  and  the  '  sons  of  liberty  '  feared, 
that  if  it  were  once  landed  it  would  probably  find 
purchasers,  for  owing  to  the  drawback  of  the  duty  on 
exportation  it  could  be  sold  much  cheaper  than  in 
England  itself,  and  cheaper  than  tea  imported  from  any 
other  country.  The  colonies  at  once  entered  into  a 
conspiracy  to  prevent  the  tea  being  landed,  and  a  long 
series  of  violent  measures  were  taken  for  the  purpose  of 
intimidating  those  who  were  concerned  in  receiving  it. 
At  last,  in  December  1773,  three  ships  laden  with  tea 
arrived  at  Boston,  and  on  the  16th  of  that  month  forty 
or  fifty  men  disguised  as  Mohawk  Indians,  and  under  the 
direct  superintendence  of  Samuel  Adams,  Hancock,2 
and  other  leading  patriots,  boarded  them,  and  posting 
sentinels  to  keep  all  agents  of  authority  at  a  distance, 
they  flung  the  whole  cargo,  consisting  of  342  chests, 
into  the  sea.  In  the  course  of  the  violent  proceedings 
at  Boston  in  this  year,  the  Council,  the  militia,  the  corps 
of  cadets  had  been  vainly  asked  to  assist  in  maintaining 
the  law.  The  sheriff  of  the  town  was  grossly  insulted. 
The  magistrates  would  do  nothing,  and,  as  usual,  the 
crowning  outrage  of  the  destruction  of  the  tea  was 

1  13  George  III.  c.  44.  tea  from  St.  Eustatia.    Hist,  of 

*  Hutchinson      notices     that  Massachusetts  Bay,  p.  297.  See, 

Hancock's  uncle  had  made  his  too,  Sabine's  American  Loyal 

large  fortune  chiefly  by  smuggling  ists,  i.  9. 


154    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  XL 

accomplished  with  perfect  impunity,  and  not  a  single 
person  engaged  in  it  was  in  any  way  molested.  At 
Charleston  a  ship  arrived  with  tea,  but  the  consignees 
were  intimidated  into  resignation,  and  the  tea  was  stored 
in  cellars,  where  it  ultimately  perished.  At  New  York 
and  Philadelphia  the  inhabitants  obliged  the  captains  of 
the  tea  ships  at  once  to  sail  back  with  their  cargoes  to 
the  Thames. 

While  the  law  was  thus  openly  defied,  the  popular 
party  were  inflexibly  opposed  to  the  project  of  granting 
the  judges  fixed  salaries  from  the  Crown,  and  thus 
making  them  in  some  degree  independent  of  the  As- 
semblies. In  Massachusetts  the  Assembly  declared  all 
judges  who  received  salaries  from  the  Crown  instead 
of  the  people  unworthy  of  public  confidence,  and  it 
threatened  to  impeach  them  before  the  Council  and  the 
Governor.  In  February  1774,  proceedings  of  this  kind 
were  actually  instituted  against  Oliver,  the  Chief  Justice 
of  the  province,  because  he  had  accepted  an  annual 
stipend  from  the  Crown.  Out  of  100  members  who 
voted,  no  less  than  92  supported  the  impeachment. 
Hutchinson  of  course  refused  to  concur  in  the  measure, 
and  on  March  30  he  prorogued  the  House,  and  at  the 
same  time  accused  it  of  having  been  guilty  of  proceed- 
ings which  *  strike  directly  at  the  honour  and  authority 
of  the  King  and  Parliament/ 

The  news  of  these  events  convinced  most  intelligent 
Englishmen  that  war  was  imminent,  and  that  the  taxa- 
tion of  America  could  only  be  enforced  by  the  sword. 
Several  distinct  lines  of  policy  were  during  the  next 
two  or  three  years  advocated  in  England.  Tucker,  the 
Dean  of  Gloucester,  a  bitter  Tory,  but  one  of  the  best 
living  writers  on  all  questions  of  trade,  maintained  a 
theory  which  was  then  esteemed  visionary  and  almost 
childish,  but  which  will  now  be  very  differently  regarded. 
He  had  no  respect  for  the  Americans ;  he  dissected  with 


en.  xi.  DEAN  TUCKER.  155 

unsparing  severity  the  many  weaknesses  in  their  argu- 
ments, and  the  declamatory  and  rhetorical  character  of 
much  of  their  patriotism  ;  but  he  contended  that  matters 
had  now  come  to  such  a  point  that  the  only  real  remedy 
was  separation.  Colonies  which  would  do  nothing  for 
their  own  defence,  which  were  in  a  condition  of  smothered 
rebellion,  and  which  were  continually  waiting  for  the 
difficulties  of  the  mother,  country  in  order  to  assert  their 
power,  were  a  source  of  political  weakness  and  not  of 
political  strength,  and  the  trade  advantages  which  were 
supposed  to  spring  from  the  connection  were  of  the 
most  delusive  kind.  Trade,  as  he  showed,  will  always 
ultimately  flow  in  the  most  lucrative  channels.  The 
most  stringent  laws  had  been  unable  to  prevent  the 
Americans  from  trading  with  foreign  countries  if  they 
could  do  so  with  advantage,  and  in  case  of  separation 
the  Americans  would  still  resort  to  England  for  most 
of  their  goods,  for  the  simple  reason  that  England  could 
supply  them  more  cheaply  than  any  other  nation.  The 
supremacy  of  English  industry  did  not  rest  upon 
political  causes.  '  The  trade  of  the  world  is  carried  on 
in  a  great  measure  by  British  capital.  British  capital 
is  greater  than  that  of  any  other  country  in  the  world, 
and  as  long  as  this  superiority  lasts  it  is  morally  impos- 
sible that  the  trade  of  the  British  nation  can  suffer  any 
very  great  or  alarming  diminution.'  No  single  fact 
is  more  clearly  established  by  history  than  that  the 
bitterest  political  animosity  is  insufficient  to  prevent 
nations  from  ultimately  resorting  to  the  markets  that 
are  most  advantageous  to  them,  and  as  long  as  England 
maintained  the  conditions  of  her  industrial  supremacy 
unimpaired  she  was  in  this  respect  perfectly  secure. 
But  nothing  impairs  these  conditions  so  much  as  war, 
which  wastes  capital  unproductively  and  burdens  in- 
dustry with  a  great  additional  weight  of  debt,  military 
establishments,  and  taxation.  The  war  which  began 


156   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   on.  xi. 

about  the  Spanish  right  of  search  had  cost  sixty  millions, 
and  had  scarcely  produced  any  benefit  to  England. 
The  last  war  cost  ninety  millions,  and  its  most  im- 
portant result  had  been,  by  securing  the  Americans 
from  French  aggression,  to  render  possible  their  present 
rebellion.  Let  England,  then,  be  wise  in  time,  and 
before  she  draws  the  sword  let  her  calculate  what 
possible  advantage  she  could  derive  commensurate  with 
the  permanent  evils  which  would  inevitably  follow. 
The  Americans  have  refused  to  submit  to  the  authority 
and  legislation  of  the  Supreme  Legislature,  or  to  bear 
their  part  in  supporting  the  burden  of  the  Empire. 
Let  them,  then,  cease  to  be  fellow-members  of  that 
Empire.  Let  them  go  their  way  to  form  their  own 
destinies.  Let  England  free  herself  from  the  cost,  the 
responsibility,  and  the  danger  of  defending  them,  re- 
taining, like  other  nations,  the  right  of  connecting 
herself  with  them  by  treaties  of  commerce  or  of  alliance.1 
The  views  of  Adam  Smith,  though  less  strongly  ex- 
pressed, are  not  very  different  from  those  of  Tucker. 
The  *  Wealth  of  Nations  '  was  published  in  1776,  and 
although  it  had  little  political  influence  for  at  least  a 
generation  after  its  appearance,  its  publication  has 
ultimately  proved  one  of  the  most  important  events  in 
the  economical,  and  indeed  in  the  intellectual,  history 
of  modern  Europe.  No  part  of  it  is  more  remarkable 
than  the  chapters  devoted  to  the  colonies.  Adam  Smith 
showed  by  an  exhaustive  examination  that  the  liberty 
of  commerce  which  England  allowed  to  her  colonies, 
though  greatly  and  variously  restricted,  was  at  least 
more  extensive  than  that  which  any  other  nation 
conceded  to  its  dependencies,  and  that  it  was  sufficient 
to  give  them  a  large  and  increasing  measure  of  pro- 
sperity. The  laws,  however,  preventing  them  from 

1  Tucker's  Political  Tracts. 


en.  xi.  ADAM   SMITH.  157 

employing  their  industry  in  manufactures  for  them- 
selves, he  described  as  '  a  manifest  violation  of  the  most 
sacred  rights  of  mankind/  and  likely  '  in  a  more  ad- 
vanced state '  to  prove  *  really  oppressive  and  insupport- 
able/ Hitherto,  however,  these  laws,  though  they  were 
'  badges  of  slavery  imposed  without  any  sufficient 
reason,'  had  been  of  little  practical  importance;  for, 
owing  to  the  great  cheapness  of  land  and  the  great 
dearness  of  labour  in  the  colonies,  it  was  obviously  the 
most  economical  course  for  the  Americans  to  devote 
themselves  to  agriculture  and  fisheries,  and  to  import 
manufactured  goods.  His  chief  contention,  however, 
was  that  the  system  of  trade  monopoly  which,  with 
many  exceptions  and  qualifications,  was  maintained  in 
the  colonies  for  the  benefit  of  England,  was  essentially 
vicious ;  that  the  colonies  were  profoundly  injured  by 
the  restrictions  which  confined  them  to  the  English 
market,  and  that  these  restrictions  were  not  beneficial, 
but  were  indeed  positively  injurious  to  England  herself. 
These  positions  were  maintained  in  a  long,  complicated, 
but  singularly  luminous  argument,  and  it  followed 
that  the  very  keystone  of  English  colonial  policy  was 
a  delusion.  *  The  maintenance  of  this  monopoly  has 
hitherto  been  the  principal,  or,  more  properly,  perhaps, 
the  sole  end  and  purpose  of  the  dominion  which  Great 
Britain  assumes  over  the  colonies.'  The  burden  of  a 
great  peace  establishment  by  land  and  sea,  maintained 
almost  exclusively  from  English  revenue,  two  great  wars 
which  had  arisen  chiefly  from  colonial  questions,  and 
the  risk  and  probability  of  many  others,  were  all 
supposed  to  be  counterbalanced  by  the  great  advantage 
which  the  mother  country  derived  from  the  monopoly  of 
the  colonial  trade.  The  truth,  however,  is  that  *  the 
monopoly  of  the  colony  trade  depresses  the  industry  of 
all  other  countries,  but  chiefly  that  of  the  colonies, 
without  in  the  least  increasing,  but,  on  the  contrary, 


158    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

diminishing,  that  of  the  country  in  whose  favour  it  is 
established.'  *  Under  the  present  system  of  manage- 
ment, therefore,  Great  Britain  derives  nothing  but  loss 
from  the  dominion  which  she  assumes  over  the  colonies.' 
Like  Tucker,  Adam  Smith  would  gladly  have  seen 
a  peaceful  separation.  '  Great  Britain,'  he  wrote, '  would 
not  only  be  immediately  freed  from  the  whole  annual 
expense  of  the  peace  establishment  of  the  colonies,  but 
might  settle  with  them  such  a  treaty  of  commerce  as 
would  effectually  secure  to  her  a  free  trade  more  advan- 
tageous to  the  great  body  of  the  people,  though  less  so 
to  the  merchants,  than  the  monopoly  which  she  at  pre- 
sent enjoys/  She  would  at  the  same  time  probably 
revive  that  good  feeling  between  the  two  great  branches 
of  the  English  race  which  was  now  rapidly  turning  to 
hatred.  Such  a  solution,  however,  though  the  best, 
must  be  put  aside  as  manifestly  impracticable.  No 
serious  politician  would  propose  the  voluntary  and  peace- 
ful cession  of  the  great  dominion  of  England  in  America 
with  any  real  hope  of  being  listened  to.  l  Such  a  measure 
never  was  and  never  will  be  adopted  by  any  nation  in 
the  world.' 

Dismissing  this  solution,  then,  Adam  Smith  agreed 
with  Grenville  that  every  part  of  the  British  Empire 
should  be  obliged  to  support  its  own  civil  and  military 
establishments,  and  to  pay  its  proper  proportion  of  the 
expense  of  the  general  government  or  defence  of  the 
British  Empire.  He  also  agreed  with  Grenville  that  it 
naturally  devolved  upon  the  British  Parliament  to  de- 
termine the  amount  of  the  colonial  contributions,  though 
the  colonial  Legislatures  might  decide  in  what  way  those 
contributions  should  be  raised.  It  was  practically  im- 
possible to  induce  the  colonial  Legislatures  of  themselves 
to  levy  such  taxation,  or  to  agree  upon  its  propor- 
tionate distribution.  Moreover,  a  colonial  Assembly, 
though,  like  the  vestry  of  a  parish,  it  is  an  admirable 


CH.  xi.  ADAM   SMITH,    CHATHAM   AND   BURKE.  159 

judge  of  the  affairs  of  its  own  district,  can  have  no  proper 
means  of  determining  what  is  necessary  for  the  defence 
and  support  of  the  whole  Empire.     This  *  can  be  judged 
of  only  by  that  Assembly  which  inspects  and  superin- 
tends the  affairs  of  the  whole  nation.'     '  The  Parliament 
of  England,'  he  added,  '  has  not  upon  any  occasion  shown 
the  smallest  disposition  to  overburden  those  parts   of 
the  Empire  which  are  not  represented  in  Parliament. 
The  islands   of  Jersey   and   Guernsey  .  .  .  are  more 
lightly  taxed  than  any  parts  of  Great  Britain.     Par- 
liament .  .  .  has  never  hitherto  demanded  of  the  colo- 
nies anything  which  even  approached  to  a  just  propor- 
tion of  what  was  paid  by  their  fellow-subjects  at  home/ 
and  the  fear  of  an  excessive  taxation  might  be  easily 
met  by  making  the  colonial  contribution  bear  a  fixed 
proportion  to  the  English  land  tax.  The  colonists,  how- 
ever, almost  unanimously  refused  to  submit  to  taxation 
by  a  Parliament  in  which  they  were  not  represented. 
The  only  solution,  then,  was  to  give  them  a  representa- 
tion in  it,  and  at  the  same  time  to  open  to  them  all  the 
prizes  of  English  politics.     The  colonists  should  ulti- 
mately be  subjected  to  the  same  taxes  as  Englishmen, 
and  should  be  admitted,  in  compensation,  to  the  same 
freedom  of  trade  and  manufacture. 

If  we  pass  from  the  political  philosophers  to  active 
politicians,  we  find  that  (Chatham  and  Burke  were  sub- 
stantially agreed  upon  the  line  they  recommended. 
Burke,  who  had  long  shown  a  knowledge  and  a  zeal  on 
American  questions  which  no  other  politician  could  rival, 
had  in  the  preceding  year  accepted,  with  very  doubtful 
propriety,  the  position  of  paid  agent  of  New  York ;  and 
in  1774  he  made  his  great  speech  on  American  taxation. 
In  the  same  year  Chatham  reappeared  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  took  a  prominent  part  in  the  American  de- 
bates. Burke  and  Chatham  continued  to  differ  on  the 
question  of  the  abstract  right  of  Parliament  to  tax 


1GO    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,   en.  xi. 

America,  but  they  agreed  in  maintaining  that  the  union 
to  the  British  Crown  of  a  vast,  civilised  and  rapidly  pro- 
gressive country,  evidently  destined  to  take  a  foremost 
place  in  the  history  of  the  world,  was  a  matter  of  vital 
importance  to  the  future  of  the  Empire.  In  the  speeches 
and  letters  of  Chatham  especially,  this  doctrine  is  main- 
tained in  the  most  emphatic  language.  '  I  fear  the  bond 
between  us  and  America,'  he  wrote  in  1774,  'will  be 
cut  off  for  ever.  Devoted  England  will  then  have  seen 
her  best  days,  which  nothing  can  restore  again.' l  *  Al- 
though I  love  the  Americans  as  men  prizing  and  setting 
a  just  value  upon  that  inestimable  blessing,  liberty,  yet 
if  I  could  once  persuade  myself  that  they  entertain  the 
most  distant  intention  of  throwing  off  the  legislative 
supremacy  and  great  constitutional  superintending 
power  and  control  of  the  British  Legislature,  I  should  my- 
self be  the  very  first  person  ...  to  enforce  that  power 
by  every  exertion  this  country  is  capable  of  making.'  2 

In  the  speeches  of  Burke,  no  passages  of  equal  em- 
phasis will  be  found ;  but  Burke,  like  Chatham,  entirely 
refused  at  this  time  to  contemplate  the  separation  of  the 
colonies  from  the  Empire  ;  and  he  maintained  that  the 
only  good  policy  was  a  policy  of  conciliation,  reverting 
to  the  condition  of  affairs  which  existed  before  the  Stamp 
Act,  and  repealing  all  the  coercive  and  aggressive  laws 
which  had  since  then  been  promulgated.  This  was  what 
the  Americans  themselves  asked.  In  presenting  a  peti- 
tion from  the  Assembly  of  Massachusetts  in  August 
1773,  Franklin,  their  Agent,  had  written  '  that  a  sincere 
disposition  prevails  in  the  people  there  to  be  on  good 
terms  with  the  mother  country  ;  that  the  Assembly  have 
declared  their  desire  only  to  be  put  into  the  situation 
they  were  in  before  the  Stamp  Act.  They  aim  at  no 


1  Thackeray's  Life  of  Chatham,  ii.  274. 
»  Ibid.  ii.  279. 


en.  xi.  POLICY   OF   BURKE.  161 

revolution.' l  In  this  spirit  Burke  urged  their  claims. 
'  Revert  to  your  old  principles  .  .  .  leave  America,  if 
she  has  taxable  matter  in  her,  to  tax  herself.  I  am  not 
here  going  into  a  distinction  of  rights,  nor  attempting 
to  mark  their  boundaries.  I  do  not  enter  into  these 
metaphysical  distinctions.  I  hate  the  very  sound  of 
them.  Leave  the  Americans  as  they  anciently  stood, 
and  these  distinctions,  born  of  our  unhappy  contest,  will 
die  along  with  it.  ...  Let  the  memory  of  all  actions  in 
contradiction  to  that  good  old  mode,  on  both  sides  be 
extinguished  for  ever.  Be  content  to  bind  America  by 
laws  of  trade ;  you  have  always  done  it.  Let  this  be  your 
reason  for  binding  their  trade.  Do  not  burthen  them 
with  taxes  ;  you  were  not  used  to  do  so  from  the  begin- 
ning. Let  this  be  your  reason  for  not  taxing.  These  are 
the  arguments  of  states  and  kingdoms.  Leave  the  rest 
to  the  schools ;  for  there  only  they  may  be  discussed 
with  safety.  If  intemperately,  unwisely,  fatally,  you 
sophisticate  and  poison  the  very  source  of  government 
by  urging  subtle  deductions  and  consequences  odious  to 
those  you  govern,  from  the  unlimited  and  illimitable 
nature  of  supreme  sovereignty,  you  will  teach  them  by 
these  means  to  call  that  sovereignty  itself  in  question/ 
The  duty  on  tea  should  especially  be  at  once  re- 
pealed. It  was  said  that  it  was  an  external  tax  such 
as  the  Americans  had  always  professed  themselves  ready 
to  pay ;  that  port  duties  had  been  imposed  by  Grenville 
as  late  as  1764  without  exciting  any  protest,  and  that 
it  was  therefore  evident  that  the  claims  of  the  Ameri- 
cans were  extending.  But  "the  American  distinction  had 
always  been  that  they  would  acknowledge  external 
taxes,  which  were  intended  only  to  regulate  trade  ;  but 
not  internal  taxes,  which  were  intended  to  raise  revenue. 
Townshend,  with  unhappy  ingenuity,  proved  that  an 

1  Franklin's  Works,  iv.  432. 


162    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

external  tax  could  be  made  to  raise  revenue  like  an  in- 
ternal tax,  and  this  purpose  was  expressly  stated  in 
the  preamble  of  the  Act.  *  It  was  just  and  necessary/ 
the  preamble  said,  '  that  a  revenue  should  be  raised 
there ; '  and  again,  the  Commons  '  being  desirous  to 
make  some  provision  in  the  present  Session  of  Parlia- 
ment towards  raising  the  said  revenue.' 

It  would  also  be  difficult  to  conceive  a  more  absurd 
position  than  that  of  the  ministry  which  retained  the  tea 
duty.  It  was  an  intelligible  policy  to  force  the  Americans 
to  support  an  army  for  the  defence  of  the  Empire ;  but 
it  was  calculated  that  the  duty  would  at  the  utmost  pro- 
duce 16,OOOZ.  a  year,  and  the  ministry  had  precluded 
themselves  from  the  possibility  of  increasing  the  revenue. 
Townshend  no  doubt  had  meant  to  do  so;  but  Lord  North 
had  authorised  Lord  Hillsborough  to  assure  the  colonial 
Governors,  in  his  letter  of  May  1769,  *  that  his  Majesty's 
present  Administration  have  at  no  time  entertained  a 
design  to  propose  to  Parliament  to  lay  any  further  taxes 
upon  America  for  the  purpose  of  raising  a  revenue/ 
16,000?.  a  year  was  therefore  the  utmost  the  Ministers 
expected  from  a  policy  which  had  led  England  to  the 
brink  of  an  almost  inevitable  war.  But  even  this  was 
not  all.  In  order  to  impose  this  unhappy  port  duty  of 
3d.  in  the  pound  on  the  Americans,  Parliament  had  ac- 
tually withdrawn  a  duty  of  Is.  in  the  pound  which  had 
hitherto  been  paid  without  question  and  without  diffi- 
culty upon  exportation  from  England,  and  which  neces- 
sarily fell  chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  upon  those  who  pur- 
chased the  tea.  *  Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  you  have 
deliberately  thrown  away  a  large  duty  which  you  held 
secure  and  quiet  in  your  hands,  for  the  vain  hope  of 
getting  three-fourths  less,  through  every  hazard,  through 
certain  litigation,  and  possibly  through  war.' l  It  was 

1  The  East    India    Company      the  transaction,  and  offered  that 
had  clearly  seen  the  absurdity  of      the  Government  should  retain  a 


CH.  xi.  POLICY  OF  BURKE.  163 

said  that  the  duty  was  merely  an  assertion  of  right,  like 
the  Declaratory  Act  of  1766.  The  answer  is  to  be  found 
in  the  very  preamble  of  the  new  Act,  which  asserted  not 
merely  the  justice,  but  also  the  expediency,  of  taxing 
the  colonies.  A  simple  repeal  was  the  one  possible  form 
of  conciliation,  for  a  legislative  union  between  countries 
3,000  miles  apart  was  wholly  impracticable,  and  the  idea 
was  absolutely  repudiated  by  the  colonies.  On  the  sub- 
ject of  the  restrictive  trade  laws,  Burke  wisely  said  as 
little  as  possible.  He  knew  that  the  question  could  not 
be  raised  without  dividing  the  friends  of  America,  and 
probably  without  alienating  the  commercial  classes, 
who  were  the  ckief  English  opponents  of  American 
taxation. 

Whether  the  policy  of  Burke  and  Chatham  would 
have  succeeded  is  very  doubtful.  After  so  much  agita- 
tion and  violence,  after  the  promulgation  of  so  many 
subversive  doctrines  in  America,  and  the  exhibition  of 
so  much  weakness  and  vacillation  in  England,  it  could 
scarcely  be  expected  that  the  tempest  would  have  been 
calmed,  and  th*at  the  race  of  active  agitators  would  have 
retired  peaceably  into  obscurity.  Philosophers  in  their 
studies  might  draw  out  reasonable  plans  of  conciliation, 
but  pure  reason  plays  but  a  small  part  in  politics,  and 
the  difficulty  of  carrying  these  plans  into  execution  was 
enormous.  Party  animosities,  divisions,  and  subdivi- 
sions ;  the  personal  interests  of  statesmen  who  wanted 
to  climb  into  office,  and  of  agitators  who  wanted  to 
retain  or  increase  their  power;  the  obstinacy  of  the 
Court,  which  was  opposed  to  all  concession  to  the 
colonies,  and  no  less  opposed  to  a  consolidation  of 
parties  at  home ;  the  spirit  of  commercial  monopoly, 


duty  of  sixpence  in  the  pound  threepence  in  the  pound  paid  in 
on  exportation,  provided  it  con-  America.  Parl.  Hist,  xviii.  178, 
eented  to  repeal  the  duty  of 


164    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  «. 

which  made  one  class  averse  to  all  trade  concessions ; 
the  heavy  weight  of  the  land  tax,  which  made  another 
class  peculiarly  indignant  at  the  refusal  of  the  colonists 
to  bear  the  burden  of  their  own  defence ;  the  natural 
pride  of  Parliament,  which  had  been  repeatedly  insulted 
and  defied;  the  anger,  the  jealousy,  and  the  suspicion 
which  recent  events  had  created  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic ;  the  doubts  which  existed  in  England  about 
the  extent  to  which  the  disloyal  spirit  of  New  England 
had  permeated  the  other  colonies;  the  doubts  which 
existed  in  America  about  which  of  the  many  sections  of 
English  public  opinion  would  ultimately  obtain  an  as- 
cendency ;  and,  finally,  the  weak  characters,  the  divided 
opinions,  the  imperfect  information,  and  the  extremely 
ordinary  capacities  of  the  English  ministers,  must  all  be 
taken  into  account.  Had  Chatham  been  at  the  head  of 
affairs  and  in  the  full  force  of  his  powers,  conciliation 
might  have  been  possible  ;  but  such  a  policy  required  a 
firm  hand,  an  eagle  eye,  a  great  personal  ascendency. 

Popular  opinion  in  England,  which  had  supported 
the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  had  'acquiesced  in 
the  repeal  of  the  greater  part  of  Townshend's  Act,  was 
now  opposed  to  further  concession.  England,  it  was 
said,  had  sufficiently  humiliated  herself.  The  claims 
and  the  language  of  the  colonial  agitators  excited  pro- 
found and  not  unnatural  indignation,  and  every  mail 
from  America  brought  news  that  New  England  at 
least  was  in  a  condition  of  virtual  rebellion;  that 
Acts  of  Parliament  were  defied  and  disobeyed  with 
the  most  perfect  impunity ;  that  the  representatives  of 
the  British  Government  were  habitually  exposed  to  the 
grossest  insult,  and  reduced  to  the  most  humiliating 
impotence.  The  utility  of  colonies  to  the  mother 
country  was  becoming  a  doubtful  question  to  some. 
Ministers,  it  was  said,  admitted  in  Parliament  that  *  it 
might  be  a  great  question  whether  the  colonies  should 


CH.  xt  THE  CASE  FOR  COERCION.  165 

not  be  given  up/ l  England,  indeed,  was  plainly  stag- 
gering under  the  weight  of  her  empire.  In  1774,  on 
the  very  eve  of  its  gigantic  struggle,  Parliament  re- 
sounded with  complaints  of  the  magnitude  of  the  peace 
establishment,  and  there  were  loud  cries  for  reduction. 
It  was  noticed  that  the  land  tax  was  Is.  higher  than  in 
any  previous  peace  establishment ;  that  the  Three  per 
Cents,  which  some  years  ago  were  above  90,  had  now 
fallen  to  about  86 ;  that  the  land  and  malt  taxes  were 
almost  entirely  absorbed  by  the  increased  expenditure 
required  for  the  navy.2  All  this  rendered  the  attitude 
of  the  colonies  peculiarly  irritating.  The  publication 
of  the  letters  of  Hutchinson  produced  great  indignation 
among  English  politicians;  and  the  burning  of  the 
'  Gaspee/  the  destruction  of  tea  in  Boston  harbour,  and 
the  manifest  connivance  of  the  whole  population  in  the 
outrage,  raised  that  indignation  to  the  highest  point. 
The  time  for  temporising,  it  was  said,  was  over.  It 
was  necessary  to  show  that  England  possessed  some 
real  power  of  executing  her  laws  and  protecting  her 
officers,  and  the  ministers  were  probably  supported  by 
a  large  majority  of  the  English  people  when  they  re- 
solved to  throw  away  the  scabbard,  and  to  exert  all 
the  powers  of  Parliament  to  reduce  Massachusetts  to 
obedience. 

The  measures  that  were  taken  were  very  stringent. 
By  one  Act  the  harbour  of  Boston  was  legally  closed. 

1  Annual  Register,  1774,  p.  62.  doubts  whether  there  should  ever 
The  King  himself  wrote  (Nov.  be  a  strict  union  between  the 
1774) :  '  We  must  either  master  colonies  and  the  mother  country ; 
them  [the  colonies]  or  totally  I  have  doubts  whether  they  are 
leave  them  to  themselves,  and  a  real  service  or  a  burthen  to  us ; 
treat  them  as  aliens.'  —  Corre-  but  I  never  had  a  doubt  as  to 
spondence  of  George  III.  i.  216.  our  right  to  lay  an  internal  tax 
As  early  as  Jan.  1769  Hussey,  the  upon  them.' — Cavendish  .De- 
Attorney- General  to  the  Queen,  bates,  i.  197. 
said  in  Parliament,  '  I  have  my  2  Annual  Register,  1774,  p.  53. 


166        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.      CH.  xi. 

The  Custom-house  officers  were  removed  to  Salem.  All 
landing,  lading,  and  shipping  of  merchandise  in  Boston 
harbour  was  forbidden,  and  English  men-of-war  were 
appointed  to  maintain  the  blockade.  The  town,  which 
owed  its  whole  prosperity  to  its  commercial  activity, 
was  debarred  from  all  commerce  by  sea,  and  was  to 
continue  under  this  ban  till  it  had  made  compensation 
to  the  East  India  Company  for  the  tea  which  had  been 
destroyed,  and  had  satisfied  the  Crown  that  trade  would 
for  the  future  be  safely  carried  on  in  Boston,  property 
protected,  laws  obeyed,  and  duties  regularly  paid.1 

By  another  Act,  Parliament  exercised  the  power 
which,  as  the  supreme  legislative  body  of  the  Empire, 
Mansfield  and  other  lawyers  ascribed  to  it,  of  remodel- 
ling by  its  own  authority  the  Charter  of  Massachusetts. 
The  General  Assembly,  which  was  esteemed  the  legiti- 
mate representative  of  the  democratic  element  in  the 
Constitution,  was  left  entirely  untouched ;  but  the 
Council,  or  Upper  Chamber,  which  had  been  hitherto 
elected  by  the  Assembly,  was  now  to  be  appointed,  as 
in  most  of  the  other  colonies  of  America,  by  the  Crown, 
and  the  whole  executive  power  was  to  cease  to  emanate 
from  the  people.  The  judges  and  magistrates  of  all 
kinds,  including  the  sheriff's,  were  to  be  appointed  by 
the  royal  governor,  and  were  to  be  revocable  at  pleasure. 
Jurymen,  instead  of  being  chosen  by  popular  election, 
were  to  be  summoned  by  the  sheriffs.  The  right  of 
public  meeting,  which  had  lately  been  much  employed 
in  inciting  the  populace  against  the  Government,  was 
seriously  abridged.  No  meeting  except  election  meet- 
ings might  henceforth  be  held,  and  no  subject  discussed, 
without  the  permission  of  the  governor.2 

It  was  more  than  probable  that  such  grave  changes 
would  be  resisted  by  force,  that  blood  would  be  shed, 


14  George  III.  o.  19.  *  Ibid.  c.  45. 


CH.  xi.  COERCIVE   ACTS   OF  PARLIAMENT.  167 

and  that  English,  soldiers  would  again  be  tried  for  their 
lives  before  a  civil  tribunal.  The  conduct  of  the  Boston 
judges  and  of  the  Boston  jury  at  the  trial  of  Captain 
Preston  and  his  soldiers  had  redounded  to  tKeir  im- 
mortal honour ;  but  Government  was  resolved  that  no 
such  risk  should  be  again  incurred,  and  that  soldiers 
who  were  brought  to  trial  for  enforcing  the  law  against 
the  inhabitants  of  Boston,  should  never  again  be  tried 
by  a  Boston  jury.  To  remove  the  trial  of  prisoners 
from  a  district  where  popular  feeling  was  so  violent 
that  a  fair  trial  was  not  likely  to  be  obtained,  was  a 
practice  not  wholly  unknown  to  English  law.  Scotch 
juries  were  not  suffered  to  try  rebels,  or  Sussex  juries 
smugglers ;  and  an  Act  was  now  passed  '  for  the  im- 
partial administration  of  justice,'  which  provided  that 
if  any  person  in  the  province  of  Massachusetts  were 
indicted  for  murder  or  any  other  capital  offence,  and  if 
it  should  appear  to  the  governor  that  the  incriminated 
act  was  committed  in  aiding  the  magistrates  to  suppress 
tumult  and  riot,  and  also  that  a  fair  trial  cannot  be  had 
in  the  province,  the  prisoner  should  be  sent  for  trial  to 
any  other  colony,  or  to  Great  Britain.1 

These  were  the  three  great  coercive  measures  of 
1774.  It  is  not  necessary  to  dilate  upon  them,  for 
their  character  is  transparently  evident,  and  the  pro- 
vocation that  produced  them  has  been  sufficiently  ex- 
plained. The  colonial  estimate  of  them  was  tersely 
stated  in  the  remonstrance  of  the  province.  '  By  the 
first,'  they  say,  '  the  property  of  unoffending  thousands 
is  arbitrarily  taken  away  for  the  act  of  a  few  individuals ; 
by  the  second  our  chartered  liberties  are  annihilated, 
and  by  the  third  our  lives  may  be  destroyed  with  im- 
punity/ General  Gage,  who  had  for  some  years  been 
commander-in-chief  of  the  whole  English  army  in 

1  14  George  III.  c.  39. 
13 


168    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  ri. 

America,  was  appointed  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  and 
entrusted  with  the  task  of  carrying  out  the  coercive 
policy  of  Parliament ;  and  in  order  to  assist  him,  an 
Act  was  carried,  quartering  soldiers  on  the  inhabitants.1 
One  other  measure  relating  to  the  colonies  was 
carried  during  this  session,  which  met  with  great 
opposition,  and  which,  though  important  in  American 
history,  is  still  more  important  in  the  history  of  religious 
liberty.  It  was  the  famous  Quebec  Act,  for  the  purpose 
of  ascertaining  the  limits  and  regulating  the  condition 
of  the  new  province  of  Canada.2  The  great  majority  of 
the  inhabitants  of  that  province  were  French,  who  had 
been  accustomed  to  live  under  an  arbitrary  government, 
and  whose  religious  and  social  conditions  differed  widely 
from  those  of  the  English  colonists.  The  Government 
resolved,  as  the  event  showed  very  wisely,  that  they 
would  not  subvert  the  ancient  laws  of  the  province,  or 
introduce  into  them  the  democratic  system  which  existed 
in  New  England.  The  English  law  with  trial  by  jury 
was  introduced  in  all  criminal  cases  ;  but  as  all  contracts 
and  settlements  had  hitherto  been  made  under  French 
law,  and  as  that  law  was  most  congenial  to  their  tastes 
and  habits  and  traditions,  it  was  maintained.3  In  all 
civil  cases,  therefore,  French  law  without  trial  by  jury 
continued  in  force.  A  legislative  Council,  varying  from 
seventeen  to  twenty-three  members,  open  to  men  of  both 
religions,  and  appointed  by  the  Crown,  managed  all 
legislative  business  except  taxation,  which  was  expressly 
reserved.  The  territory  of  the  province,  determined  by 
the  proclamation  of  1763,  was  enlarged  so  as  to  include 

1  14  George  III.  c.  54.  ferred  having  their  trials  deter- 

2  Ibid.  c.  83.  mined  by  judges  to  having  them 
1  According  to  General  Carle-       determined  by  juries,  and  had 

ton,  the  Governor,  Canada  con-  not  the    least    desire    for    any 

tained    150,000    Catholics,  and  popular  assemblies. — Parl.  Hist. 

less  than  400  Protestants ;  and  xvii.  1367,  13G8. 
the  French  Catholics  greatly  pre- 


CH.  xi.  THE  QUEBEC  ACT.  169 

some  outlying  districts,  which  were  chiefly  inhabited  by 
Trench ;  and  by  a  bold  measure,  which  excited  great 
indignation  both  among  the  Puritans  of  New  England 
and  among  the  Whigs  at  home,  the  Catholic  religion, 
which  was  that  of  the  great  majority  of  the  inhabitants, 
was  virtually  established.  The  Catholic  clergy  obtained 
a  full  parliamentary  title  to  their  old  ecclesiastical  estates, 
and  to  tithes  paid  by  members  of  their  own  religion ; 
but  no  Protestant  was  obliged  to  pay  tithes. 

The  Quebec  Act  was  little  less  distasteful  to  the 
colonists  than  the  coercive  measures  that  have  been 
related.  The  existence  upon  their  frontiers  of  an 
English  state  governed  on  a  despotic  principle  was 
deemed  a  new  danger  to  their  liberties,  while  the 
establishment  of  Catholicism  offended  their  deepest 
religious  sentiment.  Its  toleration  had  indeed  been 
provided  for  by  the  Peace  of  Paris,  and  on  the  death  of 
the  last  French  bishop  the  Government  had  agreed  to 
recognise  a  resident  Catholic  bishop  on  the  condition 
that  he  and  his  successors  should  be  designated  by  itself, 
but  the  political  position  of  the  Catholics  had  been  for 
some  time  undetermined.  The  Protestant  grand  jurors 
at  Quebec  had  insisted  that  no  Catholic  should  be 
admitted  to  grand  or  petty  juries,  and  the  party  they 
represented  would  have  gladly  concentrated  all  civil  and 
political  power  in  the  hands  of  an  infinitesimal  body  of 
Protestant  immigrants,  degraded  the  Catholics  into  a 
servile  caste,  and  reproduced  in  America  in  a  greatly 
aggravated  form  the  detestable  social  condition  which 
existed  in  Ireland.  At  home  the  strength  of  the  anti- 
Catholic  feeling  was  a  few  years  later  abundantly  shown, 
but,  with  the  exception  of  some  parts  of  Scotland,  no 
portion  of  the  British  Islands  was  animated  with  the 
religious  fervour  of  New  England,  and  no  sketch  of  the 
American  Revolution  is  adequate  which  does  not  take 
this  influence  into  account.  In  this  as  in  many  other 


170    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


CH. 


respects  these  colonies  presented  a  vivid  image  of  an 
England  which  had  long  since  passed  away.  Their  de- 
mocratic church  government,  according  to  which  each 
congregation  elected  its  own  minister,  their  historical 
connection  with  those  austere  republicans  who  had 
abandoned  their  native  country  to  worship  God  after 
their  own  fashion  in  a  desert  land,  and  the  intensely 
Protestant  type  of  their  belief,  had  all  conspired  to 
strengthen  the  Puritan  spirit,  and  in  the  absence  of 
most  forms  of  intellectual  life  the  pulpit  had  acquired 
an  almost  unparalleled  ascendency.  The  chief  and 
almost  the  only  popular  celebration  in  Massachusetts 
before  the  struggle  of  the  Revolution  was  that  of  the  5th 
of  November.1  In  Boston,  which  was  the  chief  centre 
of  the  political  movement,  the  theological  spirit  was 
especially  strong,  for  the  population  was  unusually 
homogeneous  both  in  race  and  in  religion.  The  Con- 
gregationalists  were  three  or  four  times  as  numerous  as 
the  Episcopalians,  and  other  sects  were  as  yet  scarcely 
represented.2 

The  spirit  of  American  puritanism  was  indeed  so 
fierce  and  jealous  that  the  American  Episcopalians  who 
were  connected  with  the  English  Church  were  never 
suffered  in  the  colonial  period  to  have  a  bishop  among 
them,  but  remained  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop 
of  London.  Berkeley,  Butler,  and  Seeker  had  vainly 
represented  how  injurious  this  system  was  to  the 
spiritual  welfare  of  the  American  Episcopalians.  Sher- 
lock complained  bitterly  that  he  was  made  responsible 
for  the  religious  welfare  of  a  vast  country  which  he  had 

1  See  a  curious  account  of  thia  in  1775,  Washington  forbade  the 

celebration   in  Tudor's  Life  of  commemoration,  lest  it    should 

Otis,  pp.  26-29.     It  degenerated  irritate  the  Canadian  Catholics, 

into  a  violent  contention  between  Sparks'  Washington,  iii.  144. 

different  parts  of  Boston.   When  2  Tudor's  Life   of   Otis,  pp. 

the  Americans  invaded  Canada  446,  447. 


CH.  xi.  AMERICAN   DISLIKE  TO   BISHOPS.  171 

never  seen,  which  he  never  would  see,  and  over  which 
he  could  exercise  no  real  influence.  Gibson  tried  to 
exercise  some  control  over  the  colonial  clergy,  but  found 
that  he  had  no  means  of  enforcing  his  will.  Archbishop 
Tenison  had  even  left  a  legacy  for  the  endowment  of 
two  bishoprics  in  America.  The  Episcopalians  them- 
selves petitioned  earnestly  for  a  resident  bishop,  and 
stated  in  the  clearest  terms  that  they  wished  him  to  be 
only  a  spiritual  functionary  destitute  of  all  temporal 
authority.  "The  powers  exercised  in  the  consistory 
courts  in  England,'  it  was  said,  c  are  not  desired  for 
bishops  residing  in  America.'  They  were  not  to  be 
supported  by  any  tax  ;  they  were  not  to  be  placed  either 
in  New  England  or  Pennsylvania,  where  non-episcopal 
forms  of  religion  prevailed,  or  to  be  suffered  in  any 
colony  to  exercise  any  authority,  except  over  the 
members  of  their  own  persuasion.1  It  was  urged  that 
those  who  were  in  communion  with  the  Established 
Church  of  England  were  the  only  Christians  in  America 
who  were  deprived  of  what  they  believed  to  be  the 
necessary  means  of  religious  discipline ;  that  the  rite 
of  confirmation,  which  is  so  important  in  the  Anglican 
system,  was  unknown  among  them ;  that  it  was  an  in- 
tolerable grievance  and  a  fatal  discouragement  to  their 

1  See  the  report    of    Bishop  of  them  appear  to  have  been 

Sherlock  to  the  King  in  Council,  educated  in  Dublin  University, 

on  the  Church  in  the  Colonies.  The     Massachusetts    Assembly, 

—  Documents    relating    to    the  writing  in  1768  to  their  Agent  in 

Colonial  History  of  New  York,  England,  against  the  taxation  of 

vii.    360-309.     Much    informa-  America  by  England,  say :  '  The 

tion    about     the     condition    of  revenue  raised  in  America,  for 

the   Episcopalians   in    America  aught   we  can  tell,  may  be   as 

will  be  found  in  the  correspond-  constitutionally  applied  towards 

ence  between  Archbishop  Seeker  the   supi  ort    of    prelacy,  as  of 

and  some  American  clergymen  soldiers   and  pensioners ;  '    and 

in  the  same  volume.    According  they  add  :  '  We  hope  in  God  such 

to    Sherlock,  the    Episcopalian  an  estallishment  will  never  take 

ministers  in  America  were  chiefly  place  in  America.' — Wells'  Life 

Scotch  and  Irish.  A  great  number  of  S.  Adams,  i.  200. 


172    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

creed,  that  every  candidate  for  ordination  was  obliged 
to  travel  6,000  miles  before  he  could  become  qualitied 
to  conduct  public  worship  in  his  own  village.  By  a 
very  low  computation,  it  was  said,  this  necessity  alone 
imposed  on  each  candidate  an  expenditure  of  100Z.,  and 
out  of  fifty-two  candidates  who,  in  1767,  crossed  the  sea 
from  the  Northern  colonies,  no  less  than  ten  had  died  on 
the  voyage  or  from  its  results.1  More  than  once  the 
propriety  of  sending  out  one  or  two  bishops  to  the 
colonies  had  -been  discussed,  but  the  notion  always  pro- 
duced such  a  storm  of  indignation  in  New  England  that 
it  was  speedily  abandoned.  It  was  not  indeed  a  question 
on  which  the  Ministers  at  all  cared  to  provoke  American 
opinion ;  and  it  is  a  curiously  significant  illustration  of 
the  theological  indifference  of  the  English  Government 
that  the  first  Anglican  colonial  bishop  was  the  Bishop 
of  Nova  Scotia,  who  was  only  appointed  in  1787 ;  and 
that  the  first  Anglican  Indian  bishop  was  the  Bishop  of 
Calcutta,  who  was  appointed  by  the  influence  of  Wilber- 
force  in  18 14. 

It  is  easy  to  conceive  how  fiercely  a  Protestantism 
as  jealous  and  sensitive  as  that  of  New  England  must 
have  resented  the  establishment  of  Catholicism  in 
Canada ;  and  in  the  New  England  colonies  the  poli- 
tical influence  exercised  by  the  clergy  was  very  great. 
Public  meetings  were  held  in  the  churches.  Procla- 
mations were  read  from  the  pulpit.  The  Episcopalian- 
ism  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  Government  officers 
contributed  perceptibly  to  their  unpopularity ;  political 
preaching  was  almost  universal,  and  the  sermons  of 
Mayhew,  Chauncey,  and  Samuel  Cooper  had  much  in- 
fluence in  stimulating  resistance.  The  few  clergymen 
who  abstained  from  introducing  politics  into  the  pulpit 

1  Petition  to  Lord  Hillsborough      York  and  New  Jersey,  Oct.  12, 
from  the  Anglican  clergy  of  New      1771.    MSS.  Eecord  Office. 


CH.  xi.       THE  COLONIES  SUPPORT  BOSTON.       173 

were  looked  upon  with  great  suspicion  or  dislike.1  The 
fast  days  which  were  held  in  every  important  crisis 
diffused,  intensified,  and  consecrated  the  spirit  of  resist- 
ance, and  gave  a  semi-religious  tone  to  the  whole  move- 
ment. There  were  a  few  prominent  leaders,  indeed, 
who  were  of  a  different  character.  Otis  lamented 
bitterly  that  the  profession  of  a  saintly  piety  was  in  New 
England  the  best  means  of  obtaining  political  power. 
Franklin  was  intensely  secular  in  the  character  of  his 
mind,  and  his  theology  was  confined  to  an  admiration 
for  the  pure  moral  teaching  of  the  Evangelists,  while 
Jefferson  sympathised  with  the  freethinkers  of  France ; 
but  such  ways  of  thinking  were  not  common  in  America, 
and  the  fervid  Puritanism  of  New  England  had  a  very 
important  bearing  upon  the  character  of  the  struggle. 

It  was  soon  evident  that  the  Americans  were  not  in- 
timidated by  the  Coercion  Acts,  and  that  the  hope  of  the 
ministry  that  resistance  would  be  confined  to  Massa- 
chusetts, and  perhaps  to  Boston,  was  wholly  deceptive. 
The  closing  of  the  port  of  Boston  took  place  on  the  1st 
of  June,  1774,  but  before  that  time  the  sympathies  of 
the  other  colonies  had  been  clearly  shown.  The  As- 
sembly of  Virginia,  which  was  in  session  when  the  news 
of  the  intended  measure  arrived,  of  its  own  authority 
appointed  the  1st  of  June  to  be  set  apart  as  a  day  of 

1  This  was  one  of  the  charges  mentions  how,  '  ayant  tax6  un 
brought  against  Dr.  Byles,  a  ministre  anglican  de  ne  parler 
•well-known  Tory  clergyman  in  que  du  ciel,'  he  was  much  grati- 
Boston.  He  answered  his  ac-  fied  on  the  following  Sunday  by 
cusers  :  'I  do  not  understand  hearing  from  the  pulpit  a  de- 
politics,  and  you  all  do.  .  .  .  You  nunciation  of  the  'execrable 
have  politics  all  the  week  :  pray  house  of  Hanover.' — Mem.  de 
let  one  day  in  seve.n  be  devoted  Lafayette,  i.  38.  See,  too,  on  the 
to  religion.  .  .  .  Give  me  any  use  made  of  days  of  '  fasting  and 
subject  to  preach  on  of  more  prayer  '  for  the  purpose  of  excit- 
consequence  than  the  truths  I  ing  the  revolutionary  feeling, 
bring  to  you,  and  I  will  preach  Tucker's  Life  of  Je/erson,  i. 
on  it  next  Sabbath.'  Lafayette  54,  55. 


174    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   en.  xt. 

fasting,  prayer,  and  humiliation,  '  to  implore  tlie  divine 
interposition  to  avert  the  heavy  calamity  which  threat- 
ened destruction  to  their  civil  rights,  with  the  evils  of 
civil  war,  and  to  give  one  heart  and  one  mind  to  the 
people  firmly  to  oppose  every  injury  to  the  American 
rights.'  The  Governor  at  once  dissolved  the  House,  but 
its  members  reassembled,  drew  up  a  declaration  express- 
ing warm  sympathy  with  Boston,  and  called  upon  all 
the  colonies  to  support  it. 

The  example  was  speedily  followed.  Subscriptions 
poured  in  for  the  relief  of  the  Boston  poor  who  were 
thrown  out  of  employment  by  the  closing  of  the  port. 
Virginia,  South  Carolina,  and  Maryland  sent  great 
quantities  of  corn  and  rice.  Salem  and  Marblehead, 
which  were  expected  to  grow  rich  by  the  ruin  of  Bos- 
ton, offered  the  Boston  merchants  the  free  use  of  their 
harbours,  wharfs,  and  warehouses.  Provincial,  town, 
and  county  meetings  were  held  in  every  colony  en- 
couraging Boston  to  resist,  and  the  1st  of  June  was 
generally  observed  throughout  America  as  a  day  of 
fasting  and  prayer.  The  Assembly  of  Massachusetts 
was  convoked  by  the  new  Governor,  and  soon  after 
removed  from  Boston  to  Salem,  and  it  showed  its  feel- 
ings by  calling  on  him  to  appoint  a  day  of  general 
fasting  and  prayer,  by  recommending  the  assembly  of 
a  congress  of  representatives  of  all  the  colonies  to  take 
measures  for  the  security  of  colonial  liberty,  by  accus- 
ing the  British  Government  of  an  evident  design  to  de- 
stroy the  free  constitutions  of  America,  and  to  erect  in 
their  place  systems  of  tyranny  and  arbitrary  sway,  and 
by  appealing  to  their  constituents  to  give  up  every 
kind  of  intercourse  with  England  till  their  wrongs 
were  redressed.  As  was  expected  in  'Boston,  the  As- 
sembly was  at  once  dissolved,  but  the  movement  of  re- 
sistance was  unchecked.  An  attempt  made  by  some 
loyalists  to  procure  a  resolution  from  a  public  meeting 


TH.  xi.  PREPARATIONS  FOR  WAR.  175 

in  favour  of  paying  the  East  India  Company  for  the  tea 
which  had  been  destroyed  was  defeated  by  a  great  ma- 
jority. The  system  of  committees  charged  in  every 
district  with  organising  resistance  and  keeping  up  cor- 
respondence between  the  colonies,  which  had  been  found 
so  efficient  in  1765  and  1767,  was  revived;  the  press 
and  the  pulpit  all  over  America  called  on  the  people  to 
unite  ;  and  a  '  solemn  league  and  covenant '  was  formed, 
binding  the  subscribers  to  abstain  from  all  commercial 
intercourse  with  Great  Britain  till  the  obnoxious  Acts 
were  repealed.  It  was  agreed  that  all  delinquents 
should  be  held  up  in  the  newspapers  to  popular  venge- 
ance, and  on  the  5th  of  September,  1774,  the  delegates 
of  the  twelve  States  assembled  in  Congress  at  Phila- 
delphia. 

'  The  die  is  now  cast,'  wrote  the  King  at  this  time ; 
'  the  colonies  must  either  submit  or  triumph.'  The 
war  did  not  indeed  yet  break  out,  but  both  sides  were 
rapidly  preparing.  Fresh  ships  of  war  and  fresh  troops 
were  sent  to  Boston.  General  Gage  fortified  the  neck 
of  land  which  connected  it  with  the  continent ;  he  took 
possession,  amid  fierce  demonstrations  of  popular  indig- 
nation, of  the  gunpowder  in  some  of  the  arsenals  of  New 
England ;  he  issued  a  proclamation  describing  the  new 
'  league  and  covenant '  as  '  an  illegal  and  traitorous 
combination,'  but  he  was  unable  to  obtain  any  prosecu- 
tion. He  tried  to  erect  new  barracks  in  Boston,  but 
found  it  almost  impossible  to  obtain  builders.  Must 
of  the  new  councillors  appointed  by  the  Crown  were 
obliged  by  mob  violence  to  resign  their  posts,  and  the 
few  who  accepted  the  appointment  were  held  up  to 
execration  as  enemies  of  their  country.  Eiots  and  out- 
rages were  of  almost  daily  occurrence.  Conspicuous 
Tories  were  tarred  and  feathered,  or  placed  astride  of 
rails,  and  carried  in  triumph  through  the  streets  of  the 
chief  towns.  One  man  was  fastened  in  the  body  of  a 


176    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,   en.  >:», 

dead  ox  which  he  had  bought  from  an  obnoxious  loyalist, 
and  thus  carted  for  several  miles  between  Plymouth 
and  Kingston.  Another  was  nearly  suffocated  by  being 
confined  in  a  room  with  a  fire,  while  the  chimney  and 
all  other  apertures  were  carefully  closed.  Juries  sum- 
moned under  the  new  regulations  refused  to  be  sworn. 
Judges  who  accepted  salaries  from  the  Crown  were  pre- 
vented by  armed  mobs  from  going  to  their  courts. 
Most  of  the  courts  of  justice  in  Massachusetts  were 
forcibly  closed,  and  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  in- 
formed General  Gage  that  it  was  totally  impossible  for 
them  to  administer  justice  in  the  province,  that  no  jurors 
could  be  obtained,  and  that  the  troops  were  altogether 
insufficient  for  their  protection. 

Conspicuous  politicians,  even  members  of  the  Con- 
gress, are  said  to  have  led  the  mobs.  In  Berkshire  the 
mob  actually  forced  the  judges  from  the  bench  and  shut 
up  the  court-house.  At  Worcester,  about  5,000  per- 
sons, a  large  proportion  of  them  being  armed,  having 
formed  themselves  in  two  files,  compelled  the  judges, 
sheriffs,  and  gentlemen  of  the  bar  to  pass  between  them 
with  bare  heads,  and  at  least  thirty  times  to  read  a  paper 
promising  to  hold  no  courts  under  the  new  Acts  of  Par- 
] lament.  At  Springfield  the  judges  and  sheriffs  were 
treated  with  the  same  ignominy.  At  Westminster,  in 
the  province  of  New  York,  the  court-house  and  gaol  were 
captured  by  the  mob,  and  the  judges,  sheriffs,  and  many 
loyalist  inhabitants  were  locked  up  in  prison.  A  judge 
in  the  same  province  had  the  courage  to  commit  to 
prison  a  man  who  was  employed  in  disarming  the  loyal- 
ists. The  prisoner  was  at  once  rescued,  and  the  judge 
carried,  tarred  and  feathered,  five  or  six  miles  through 
the  country.1  Great  numbers  of  loyalists  were  driven 


1  Moore's  Diary  of  the  Ameri-      This  very  interesting  book  is  a 
can  Revolution,  i.   37-52,   138.      collection  of  extracts  from  the 


CH.  xi.  MOB  VIOLENCE  IN  AMERICA.  177 

from  their  estates  or  their  business ;  and  except  under 
the  very  guns  of  British  soldiers,  they  could  find  no 
safety  in  New  England.  As  the  Crown  possessed 
scarcely  any  patronage  in  the  colonies  to  reward  it3 
friends,  all  but  the  most  courageous  and  devoted  were 
reduced  to  silence,  or  hastened  to  identify  themselves 
with  the  popular  cause.  *  Are  not  the  bands  of  society,' 
wrote  a  very  able  loyalist  at  this  time,  '  cast  asunder, 
and  the  sanctions  that  hold  man  to  man  trampled  upon? 
Can  any  of  us  recover  debts,  or  obtain  compensation  for 
an  injury,  by  law  ?  Are  not  many  persons  whom  we 
once  respected  and  revered  driven  from  their  homes  and 
families,  and  forced  to  fly  to  the  army  for  protection,  for 
no  other  reason  but  their  having  accepted  commissions 
under  our  King  ?  Is  not  civil  government  dissolved  ? 
.  .  .  What  kind  of  offence  is  it  for  a  number  of  men  to 
assemble  armed,  and  forcibly  to  obstruct  the  course  of 
justice,  even  to  prevent  the  King's  courts  from  being 
held  at  their  stated  terms  ;  to  seize  upon  the  King's  pro- 
vincial revenue,  I  mean  the  moneys  collected  by  virtue 
of  grants  made  to  his  Majesty  for  the  support  of  his 
government  within  this  province  ;  to  assemble  without 
being  called  by  authority,  and  to  pass  Governmental 
Acts  ;  to  take  the  militia  out  of  the  hands  of  the  King's 
representative,  or  to  form  a  new  militia ;  to  raise  men 
and  appoint  officers  for  a  public  purpose  without  the 
order  or  permission  of  the  King  or  his  representative,  or 
to  take  arms  and  march  with  a  professed  design  of  op- 
posing the  King's  troops  ?  J  <  Committees  not  known 
in  law  .  .  .  frequently  elect  themselves  into  a  tribunal, 
where  the  same  persons  are  at  once  legislators,  accusers, 
witnesses,  judges,  and  jurors,  and  the  mob  the  execu- 

contemporary     newspapers    on  too,  Force's  American  Archives 

both  sides  of  the  question,  and  (4th  series),  i.  747,  748,  767-769, 

gives  a  vivid  picture  of  the  social  795,  1260-1263. 
condition  of  the  colonies.     See, 


178    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,   as.  xi, 

tioners.     The   accused  has  no  day  in  court,  and  the 
execution  of  the  sentence  is  the  first  notice  he  receives- 
This  is  the  channel  through  which  liberty  matters  have 
been  chiefly  conducted  the  summer  and  fall  past.  .  .  . 
It  is  chiefly  owing  to  these  committees  that  so  many  re- 
spectable persons  have  been  abused  and  forced  to  sign 
recantations  and  resignations ;  that  so  many  persons,  to 
avoid  such  reiterated  insults  as  are  more  to  be  depre- 
cated by  a  man  of  sentiment  than  death  itself,  have  been 
obliged  to  quit  their  houses,  families,  and  business,  and 
fly  to  the  army  for  protection ;  that  husband  has  been 
separated   from  wife,   father   from   son,   brother   from 
brother,  the  sweet  intercourse  of  conjugal  and  natural 
affection  interrupted,  and  the  unfortunate  refugee  forced 
to  abandon  all  the  comforts  of  domestic  life.' l     Even  in 
cases  which  had  little  or  no  connection  with  politics, 
mob  violence  was  almost  uncontrolled.     Thus  a  custom- 
house officer  named  Malcolm,  who  in  a  street  riot  had 
struck  or  threatened  to  strike  with  a  cutlass  a  person 
who  insulted  him,  was  dragged  out  of  his  house  by  the 
mob,   stripped,   tarred  and  feathered,  then  carted  for 
several    hours    during   an   intense   frost,    and   finally 
scourged,  with  a  halter  round   his  neck,  through  the 
streets  of  Boston,  and  all  this  was  done  in  the  presence 
of  thousands  of  spectators,  and  with  the  most  absolute 
impunity.     At  Marblehead  the  mob,  believing  that  an 
hospital   erected    for  the  purpose  of  inoculation  was 
spreading  contagion,  burnt  it  to  the  ground,  and  for 
several  days  the  whole  town  was  in  their  undisputed 
possession.* 

1  Massachusettensis,orLetters  self  driven  from  his  house  in 

on  the  present  Troubles  of  Massa-  Taunton,  and  bullets  were  fired 

chusetts  Bay,  Letters  L,  IV.  into  it.— Moore's  Diary,  i.  38. 

"  Ibid.  Letter  III.  These  very  Among  the  numerous  persons 

remarkable  letters  were  written  who  were  at  this  time  driven  into 

by  Leonard,  one  of  his  Majesty's  exile  was  Dr.  Cooper,  President 

Council.  The  author  was  him-  of  King's  College  in  New  York, 


CH.  xi.  GAGE'S  PROCLAMATION. — NEW  ENGLAND  ARMS.  179 

Among  many  graver  matters,  an  amusing  indigna- 
tion was  about  this  time  excited  by  a  proclamation 
which  General  Gage,  according  to  a  usual  custom,  issued 
1  for  the  encouragement  of  piety  and  virtue,  and  the 
prevention  of  vice,  profaneness,  and  immorality.'  The 
General  knew  that  the  Boston  preachers  made  it  a 
favourite  theme  that  the  presence  of  British  soldiers 
was  fatal  to  the  purity  of  New  England  morals,  and  he 
now  for  the  first  time  inserted  *  hypocrisy '  in  the  list 
of  the  vices  against  which  the  people  were  warned. 
The  vehemence  with  which  this  was  resented  as  a 
studied  insult  to  the  clergy,  convinced  many  impartial 
persons  that  the  insinuation  was  not  wholly  undeserved. 

The  people  were  in  the  meantime  rapidly  arming. 
Guns  were  collected  from  all  sides,  the  militia  was  assidu- 
ously drilled,  and  its  organisation  was  improved ;  bodies 
of  volunteers  called  *  minute  men '  were  formed,  who 
were  bound  to  rise  to  arms  at  the  shortest  notice,  and 
New  England  had  all  the  aspect  of  a  country  at  war. 
A  false  alarm  was  spread  abroad — possibly  in  order  to 
ascertain  the  number  who  would  rise  in  case  of  instir- 
,  rection — that  the  British  troops  and  vessels  were  firing 
upon  Boston,  and  in  a  few  hours  no  less  than  30,000 
men  from  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  are  said  to 
have  been  in  arms.  The  collision  was  happily  averted, 
but  this  incident  gave  the  popular  party  new  confidence 
in  their  strength,  and  over  the  greater  part  of  New 
England  their  ascendency  was  undisputed.  The  new 
seat  of  government  at  Salem  was  abandoned  ;  the  new 
councillors,  and  all  or  nearly  all  the  officers  connected 


and  the  most  distinguished  Epi-  half-dressed    over    the    college 

scopalian  in  America.    He  had  fence,  to  take  refuge  in  an  Eng- 

written  something  on  the  loyalist  lish  ship  of  war,  and  ultimately 

side,  and  accordingly  received  a  in  England. — Documents  relat- 

letter  threatening  his  life,  and  ing   to   the  Colonial  History  of 

was  soon  after  compelled  to  fly  New  York,  viii.  297. 


180    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

with  the  revenue,  fled  for  safety  to  Boston,  and  although 
the  troops  were  not  openly  resisted  they  experienced 
on  every  side  the  animosity  of  the  people.  Farmers 
refused  to  sell  them  provisions.  Straw  which  they  had 
purchased  was  burnt.  Carts  with  wood  were  over- 
turned, boats  with  bricks  were  sunk,  when  it  was  dis- 
covered that  they  were  for  the  King's  service,  and  at 
the  same  time  colonial  agents  were  industriously  tempt- 
ing individual  soldiers  to  desert. 

The  Congress  which  met  in  Philadelphia,  though  it 
had  no  legal  authority,  was  obeyed  as  the  supreme 
power  in  America.  It  consisted  of  delegates  selected 
by  the  Provincial  Assemblies  which  then  were  sitting, 
and,  in  cases  where  the  Governors  had  refused  to  con- 
voke these  Assemblies,  by  Provincial  Congresses  called 
together  for  that  purpose.  Except  Georgia,  all  the 
colonies  which  existed  before  the  peace  of  1763  were 
represented.  The  number  of  delegates  varied  according 
to  the  magnitude  of  the  States,  but  after  much  discus- 
sion it  was  determined  that  no  colony  should  count  for 
more  than  one  in  voting.  The  Congress  in  the  first  place 
expressed  its  full  and  unqualified  approbation  of  the 
conduct  of  the  inhabitants  of  Boston,  exhorted  them  to 
continue  unflinching  in  their  opposition  to  the  invasion 
of  their  Constitution,  and  invited  the  other  colonies  to 
contribute  liberally  to  their  assistance.  It  next  drew 
up  a  series  of  extremely  able  State  papers  defining  and 
enforcing  the  position  of  the  Americans.  After  long 
debate  and  violent  difference  of  opinion,  it  was  resolved 
not  to  treat  the  commercial  restrictions  as  a  grievance, 
or  to  deny  the  general  legislative  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment over  America.  Franklin,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
recently  contended  that  the  colonies,  though  subject  to 
the  King,  were  by  right  wholly  independent  of  the 
Parliament,  and,  this  doctrine  had  been  formally  main- 
tained by  the  Assembly  of  Massachusetts  in  its  addresses 


en.  xi. 


CONGRESS   OF  PHILADELPHIA,    1774. 


181 


of  1773,  but  it  was  not  the  contention  of  the  original 
opponents  of  the  Stamp  Act,1  and  it  was  not  generally 
accepted  in  the  other  colonies.2  The  Congress,  there- 
fore, while  asserting  in  the  strongest  terms  the  exclusive 
right  of  the  provincial  legislatures  in  all  cases  of  taxa- 
tion and  internal  policy,  at  last  consented  to  add  these 
remarkable  words  in  their  declaration  of  rights :  *  From 
the  necessity  of  the  case  and  in  regard  to  the  mutual 
interests  of  both  countries,  we  cheerfully  consent  to  the 
operation  of  such  Acts  of  the  British  Parliament  as  are 
bond  fide  restrained  to  the  regulation  of  our  external 
commerce  for  the  purpose  of  securing  the  commercial 
advantages  of  the  whole  Empire  to  the  mother  country 
and  the  commercial  benefits  of  its  respective  members.' 
They  enumerated,  however,  a  long  series  of  Acts  carried 


1  Even  Otis,  who  had  been  the 
first  to  denounce  the  commercial 
restrictions  as  unconstitutional, 
and  who  repudiated  writs  of 
assistance  as  the  creation  of  the 
English  Parliament,  maintained 
— not  very  consistently  —  that 
Parliament  had  a  real  legislative 
authority  in  America,  and  he  de- 
precated in  the  strongest  lan- 
guage any  measure  tending  to 
separation.  *  The  supreme  Legis- 
lative,' he  wrote  in  1765,  '  repre- 
sents the  whole  society  or  com- 
munity, as  well  the  dominions 
as  the  realm;  and  this  is  the 
true  reason  why  the  dominions 
are  justly  bound  by  such  Acts 
of  Parliament  as  name  them. 
This  is  implied  in  the  idea  of  a 
supreme  sovereign  power;  and 
if  the  Parliament  had  not  such 
authority  the  colonies  would  be 
independent,  which  none  but 
rebels,  fools,  or  madmen  will 
contend  for.' — Answer  to  the 
Halifax  Libel,  p.  16.  The  same 


doctrine  is  laid  down  with  equal 
emphasis  in  the  Farmer's  Let- 
ters: 'The  Parliament  unques- 
tionably possesses  a  legal  autho- 
rity to  regulate  the  trade  of  Great 
Britain  and  all  its  colonies.  Such 
an  authority  is  essential  to  the 
relation  between  a  mother 
country  and  its  colonies.  .  .  . 
We  are  but  parts  of  a  whole,  and 
therefore  there  must  exist  a 
power  somewhere  to  preside  and 
preserve  the  connection  in  due 
order.  This  power  is  lodged  in 
the  Parliament.'— Letter  II. 

2  Story's  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  i.  178, 179.  Jeffer- 
son says  that  about  the  middle 
of  1774  he  maintained  that  the 
relations  of  England  to  the 
colonies  were  similar  to  those  of 
England  with  Scotland  before 
the  Union,  or  of  England  with 
Hanover  at  present,  but  he  only 
found  one  person  to  agree  with 
him. — Autobiography. 


182    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

during  the  present  reign  which  were  violations  of  their 
liberty,  and  which  must  be  repealed  if  the  two  countries 
were  to  continue  in  amity.  Among  them  were  the 
Acts  closing  the  harbour  of  Boston,  changing  the  con- 
stitution of  Massachusetts,  establishing  despotic  govern- 
ment and  the  Popish  religion  in  Canada,  interfering 
with  the  right  of  public  meeting,  quartering  British 
troops  upon  the  colonists,  and  above  all  imposing  taxa- 
tion by  Imperial  authority. 

They  pronounced  it  unnecessary  to  maintain  a  stand- 
ing army  in  the  colonies  in  time  of  peace,  and  illegal 
to  do  so  without  the  consent  of  the  local  legislatures. 
They  complained  also  that  their  assemblies  had  been 
arbitrarily  dissolved,  that  their  governors  had  conspired 
against  their  liberty,  and  that  in  several  cases  they  had 
been  deprived  of  their  constitutional  right  of  trial  by 
jury  or  at  least  by  a  '  jury  of  the  vicinage/  The  Court 
of  Admiralty  tried  revenue  cases  without  a  jury,  and 
the  Governor  had  power  to  send  for  trial  out  of  the 
colony  those  who  were  accused  of  treason,  of  destroying 
the  King's  ships  or  naval  stores,  or  of  homicide  com- 
mitted in  suppressing  riot  or  rebellion.  All  this  masa 
of  legislation  Parliament  must  speedily  and  absolutely 
repeal.  For  the  present,  however,  the  Congress  resolved 
to  resort  only  to  peaceful  means,  and  their  weapon  was 
a  rigid  non- importation,  non-consumption,  and  non- 
exportation  agreement,  which  was  to  be  imposed  by 
their  authority  upon  all  the  colonies  they  represented 
and  was  to  continue  until  their  grievances  had  been 
fully  redressed. 

From  December  1  following,  the  members  of  the 
Congress  bound  themselves  and  their  constituents  to 
import  no  goods  from  Great  Britain,  to  purchase  no 
slave  imported  after  that  date  and  no  tea  imported  on 
account  of  the  East  India  Company,  and  to  extend  the 
same  prohibition  to  the  chief  products  of  the  British 


CH.  xi.  CONGRESS  OF  1774.  183 

plantations,  to  the  wines  of  Madeira  and  the  West  India 
islands  which  were  unloaded  to  pay  duty  in  England, 
and  to  foreign  indigo.  On  September  10,  1775,  if  the 
grievances  were  not  yet  redressed  a  new  series  of 
measures  were  to  come  into  force,  and  no  commodity 
whatever  was  to  be  exported  from  America  to  Great 
Britain,  Ireland,  or  the  West  Indies,  except  rice  to 
Europe;  committees  were  to  be  appointed  in  every 
town  and  county  to  observe  the  conduct  of  all  persons 
touching  this  association,  and  to  publish  in  the  '  Gazette ' 
the  name  of  anyone  who  had  violated  it ;  and  all  deal- 
ings with  such  persons  and  with  any  portion  of  the 
colonies  which  refused  to  join  the  association  were  for- 
bidden. At  the  same  time  the  Congress  agreed  for 
themselves  and  their  constituents  to  do  the  utmost  in 
their  power  to  encourage  frugality  and  promote  manu- 
factures, to  suppress  or  suspend  every  form  of  gambling 
and  expensive  amusement,  to  abandon  the  custom  of 
wearing  any  other  mourning  than  a  black  ribbon  or 
necklace  for  the  dead,  and  to  diminish  the  expenditure 
at  funerals. 

In  addition  to  these  measures,  they  issued  very 
powerful  addresses  to  the  King  and  to  the  people  of 
England  professing  their  full  loyalty  to  the  Crown,  but 
enumerating  their  grievances  in  emphatic  terms.  In 
the  address  to  the  people  of  England  they  skilfully 
appealed  to  the  strong  anti-Catholic  feeling  of  the  nation, 
denying  the  competence  of  the  Legislature  '  to  establish 
a  religion  fraught  with  sanguinary  and  impious  tenets/ 
'  a  religion  that  has  deluged  your  island  in  blood,  and 
dispersed  impiety,  bigotry,  persecution,  murder,  and 
rebellion  through  every  part  of  the  world ; '  and  they 
predicted  that  if  the  ministers  succeeded  in  their  de- 
signs, 'the  taxes  from  America,  the  wealth  and,  we 
may  add,  the  men,  and  particularly  the  Koman  Catholics 
of  this  vast  continent,  will  be  in  their  power '  to  enslave 
14 


184    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

the  people  of  Great  Britain.  Their  own  attachment  to 
Great  Britain  they  emphatically  affirmed.  *  You  have 
been  told,5  they  said,  '  that  we  are  seditious,  impatient 
of  government,  and  desirous  of  independency.  Be 
assured  that  these  are  not  facts  but  calumnies.  .  .  . 
Place  us  in  the  same  situation  that  we  were  at  the 
close  of  the  last  war,  and  our  former  harmony  will  be 
restored.'  At  the  same  time,  in  an  ingenious  address 
to  the  Canadians  they  endeavoured  to  alienate  them 
from  England,  to  persuade  them  that  they  were  both 
oppressed,  deceived,  and  insulted  by  the  present  minis- 
ters, and  to  induce  them  to  join  with  the  other  colonies 
in  vindicating  their  common  freedom.  Difference  of 
religion,  they  maintained,  could  be  no  bar  to  co-opera- 
tion. *  We  are  too  well  acquainted/  they  said,  '  with 
the  liberality  of  sentiment  distinguishing  your  nation 
to  imagine  that  difference  of  religion  will  prejudice  you 
against  a  hearty  amity  with  us,'  and  they  referred  to 
the  example  of  the  Swiss  cantons,  where  Protestant  and 
Catholic  combined  with  the  utmost  concord  to  vindicate 
and  guard  their  political  liberty.  Having  issued  these 
addresses,  the  Congress  dissolved  itself  in  less  than 
eight  weeks ;  but  it  determined  that  unless  grievances 
were  first  redressed,  another  Congress  should  meet  at 
Philadelphia  on  May  10  following,  and  it  recommended 
all  the  colonies  to  choose  deputies  as  soon  as  possible.1 

Such  were  the  proceedings  of  this  memorable  body, 
which  laid  the  foundation  of  American  independence. 
Perhaps  the  most  perplexing  question  raised  by  its  pro- 
ceedings is  the  degree  of  sincerity  that  can  be  ascribed 
to  the  disclaimer  of  all  wish  for  separation.  That  a 
considerable  party  in  New  England  anticipated  and 


1  Journal  of  the  Proceedings      account  of  the  debates  in  Adams 
of  tlie  Congress  held  at  Philadel*      Diary, 
vhia,  Sept.  1774.    See,  too,  the 


CH.  xi.  INDEPENDENCE  NOT  WISHED   FOB.  185 

desired  an  open  breach  with  England  appears  to  me 
undoubted,  but  it  is  equally  certain  that  many  of  the 
leading  agents  in  the  Revolution  expressed  up  to  the 
last  moment  a  strong  desire  to  remain  united  to  England. 
It  was  in  August  1774,  when  the  Americans  were  busily 
arming  themselves  for  the  struggle,  that  Franklin  as- 
sured Chatham  that  there  was  no  desire  for  indepen- 
dence in  the  colonies.1  John  Adams,  who  had  not,  like 
Franklin,  the  excuse  of  absence  from  his  native  country, 
wrote  in  March  1775,  even  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts, 
'  that  there  are  any  that  pant  after  independence  is  the 
greatest  slander  on  the  province.5  Jefferson  declared 
that  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence  he  had 
never  heard  a  whisper  of  disposition  to  separate  from 
Great  Britain  ;  and  Washington  himself,  in  the  October 
of  1774,  denied  in  the  strongest  terms  that  there  was 
any  wish  for  independence  in  any  province  in  America.2 
The  truth  seems  to  be  that  the  more  distinguished 
Americans  were  quite  resolved  to  appeal  to  the  sword 
rather  than  submit  to  parliamentary  taxation  and  to  the 
other  oppressive  laws  that  were  complained  of,  but  if 
they  could  restore  the  relations  to  the  mother  country 
which  subsisted  before  the  Stamp  Act,  they  had  no 
desire  whatever  to  sever  the  connection.  In  1774  and 
during  the  greater  part  of  1775  very  few  Americans 
wished  for  independence,  and  long  after  this  period 
many  of  those  who  took  an  active  part  in  the  Revolution 
would  gladly  have  restored  the  connection  if  they  could 
have  done  so  on  terms  which  they  considered  compatible 

1  He  said  to  Chatham  that,  person,  drunk  or  sober,  the  least 
•having  more  than  once  travelled  expression  of  a  wish  for  a  separa- 
almost  from  one  end  of  the  con-  tion,  or  hint  that  such  a  thing 
tinent  to  the  other,  and  kept  a  would  be  advantageous  to 
great  variety  of  company — eating,  America.' — Negotiations  in  Lou- 
drinking,  and  conversing  with  don.  Franklin's  Works,  v.  7. 
them  freely,  I  have  never  heard  2  See  on  this  subject  Wash- 
in  any  conversation,  from  any  ington's  Works,  ii.  401,  496--502. 


186         ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,      en.  xi. 

with  their  freedom.  The  instructions  of  the  chief 
colonies  to  their  delegates  in  Congress  are  on  this 
subject  very  unequivocal.  Thus  New  Hampshire  in- 
structed its  delegates  to  endeavour  '  to  restore  that 
peace,  harmony,  and  mutual  confidence  which  once 
happily  subsisted  between  the  parent  country  and  her 
colonies.'  Massachusetts  spoke  of  'the  restoration  of 
union  and  harmony  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
colonies  most  ardently  desired  by  all  good  men.' 
Pennsylvania  enjoined  its  representatives  to  aim  not 
only  at  the  redress  of  American  grievances  and  the 
definition  of  American  rights,  but  also  at  the  esta- 
blishment of  '  that  union  and  harmony  between  Great 
Britain  and  her  colonies  which  is  indispensably  necessary 
to  the  welfare  and  the  happiness  of  both.'  Virginia 
aspired  after  *  the  return  of  that  harmony  and  union  so 
beneficial  to  the  whole  Empire  and  so  ardently  desired 
by  all  British  America,'  and  North  and  South  Carolina 
adopted  a  similar  language.1  In  1775  the  Convention 
of  South  Carolina  assured  their  new  governor  that  they 
adhered  to  the  British  Crown,  though  they  had  taken 
arms  against  British  tyranny.  The  Virginian  Convention 
in  the  same  year  declared  '  before  God  and  the  world  ' 
that  they  bore  their  faith  to  the  King,  and  would 
disband  their  forces  whenever  the  liberties  of  America 
were  restored ;  the  Assembly  of  New  Jersey,  while  their 
State  was  in  open  rebellion,  rebuked  their  governor  for 
supposing  the  Americans  to  be  aiming  at  national  inde- 
pendence ; 2  and,  lastly,  the  Provincial  Congress  of  New 
York,  when  congratulating  Washington  on  his  appoint- 
ment as  commander-in-chief  of  the  insurgent  force,  took 
care  to  add  their  assurance  '  that  whenever  this  im- 
portant contest  shall  be  decided  by  that  fondest  wish  of 

1  Journal  of  the  Proceedings         *  See  other  instances  in  Gra- 
of  the  Congress  held  at  Phila-      hame,  iv.  392,  395. 
delphia,  Sept.  5,  1774. 


CH.  xi.  INDEPENDENCE   NOT   WISHED   FOR.  187 

each  American  soul,  an  accommodation  with  our  mother 
country,  you  will  cheerfully  resign  the  deposit  com- 
mitted into  your  hands.' l 

Many  other  public  documents  might  be  cited  showing 
that  the  Americans  took  up  arms  to  redress  grievances 
and  not  to  establish  independence,  and  that  it  was  only 
very  slowly  and  reluctantly  that  they  became  familiar- 
ised with  the  idea  of  a  complete  separation  from  England. 
IS' 01  is  there,  I  think,  any  reason  to  believe  that  this 
language  was  substantially  untrue.  In  March  1776 
General  Reed,  in  confidential  letters  to  Washington, 
lamented  that  the  public  mind  in  Virginia  was  violently 
opposed  to  the  idea  of  independence.2  Galloway,  one 
of  the  ablest  of  the  Pennsylvanian  loyalists,  afterwards 
expressed  his  belief  before  a  committee  of  the  House  of 
Commons  that  at  the  time  when  the  Americans  took  up 
arms  less  than  a  fifth  part  of  them  4  had  independence 
in  view  ; '  3  and  John  Adams  when  an  old  man  related 
how,  when  he  first  went  to  the  Congress  at  Philadelphia, 
the  leading  conspirators  in  that  town  said  to  him,  *  You 
must  not  utter  the  word  independence  or  give  the  least 
hint  or  insinuation  of  the  idea  either  in  congress  or  any 
private  conversation ;  if  you  do  you  are  undone,  for  the 
idea  of  independence  is  as  unpopular  in  Pennsylvania 
and  in  all  the  Middle  and  Southern  States  as  the  Stamp 
Act  itself.'4  Adams  tells  how,  when  a  letter  which 
he  had  written  in  1775  advocating  independence  was 
intercepted  and  published,  he  was  *  avoided  like  a  man 
infected  with  the  leprosy/  and  *  walked  the  streets  of 
Philadelphia  in  solitude,  borne  down  by  the  weight  of 
care  and  unpopularity.' 6  Few  men  contributed  more 

1  Eamsay,  i.  220.  4  Adams'  Works,  ii.  512. 

1  March  3  and  15,  1776.  See  *  Ibid.  p.  513.  In  a  confiden- 

Washington's  Works,  iii.  347,  tial  letter  from  New  York,  dated 

348.  Aug.  7,  1775,  Governor  Tryon 

3  Examination  of  Joseph  Oal-  said:  'I  should  do  great  in  justice 

loway,  p.  4.  to  America  were  I  to  hold  up  an 


188    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xf. 

to  hasten  the  separation  between  the  two  countries,  yet 
he  afterwards  wrote  these  remarkable  words :  '  For  my 
own  part  there  was  not  a  moment  during  the  Eevolution 
when  I  would  not  have  given  everything  I  possessed 
for  a  restoration  to  the  state  of  things  before  the  contest 
began,  provided  we  could  have  a  sufficient  security  for 
its  continuance. '  * 

In  1774  also,  it  is  evident  that  a  large  proportion  of 
the  most  ardent  patriots  imagined  that  redress  could  be 
obtained  without  actual  fighting,  and  that  the  Legisla- 
ture of  the  greatest  country  in  the  world  would  repeal  no 
less  than  eleven  recent  Acts  of  Parliament  in  obedience 
to  a  mere  threat  of  resistance.  They  knew  that  numerous 
urgent  petitions  in  favour  of  conciliation  had  been  pre- 
sented by  English  merchants,  and  that  many  of  the  most 
conspicuous  English  politicians,  including  Chatham, 
Camden,  Shelburne,  Conway,  Barre,  and  Burke,  were 
on  their  side,  and  they  overrated  greatly  the  strength  of 
their  friends,  and  especially  the  effect  of  the  non-impor- 
tation agreements  upon  English  prosperity.  *  England/ 
it  was  argued  in  the  Congress,  *  is  already  taxed  as  much 
as  she  can  bear.  She  is  compelled  to  raise  ten  millions 
in  time  of  peace.  Her  whole  foreign  trade  is  but  four 
and  half  millions,  while  the  value  of  the  importations  to 
the  colonies  is  probably  little,  if  at  all,  less  than  three 
millions.'  '  A  total  non-importation  and  non-exportation 
to  Great  Britain  and  the  West  Indies  must  produce  a 
national  bankruptcy  in  a  very  short  space  of  time.' 2 
Kichard  Henry  Lee,  one  of  the  most  prominent  Virginian 
politicians,  was  so  confident  in  the  effect  of  non-impor- 

idea  that  the  bulk  of  its  inhabit-  relating  to  the  Colonial  History 

ants  wishes  an  independency.    I  of  New  York,  viii.  603. 

am  satisfied  (not  to  answer  for  !  See  Washington's  Works,  ii. 

our  Eastern  neighbours)  a  very  501. 

large  majority,  particularly  in  2  Speech  of  Chase.      Adams1 

this  province,  are  utter  enemies  Works,  ii.  383. 

to  such  a  principle.' — Documents 


CH   xi.        ILLUSIONS  IN  AMERICA  AND  ENGLAND.  189 

tation  that  he  declared  himself  '  absolutely  certain  that 
the  same  ship  which  carries  home  the  resolution  will 
bring  back  the  redress/  1  Washington  was  more  doubt- 
ful, but  he  expressed  his  opinion  privately  that  by  a  non- 
importation and  a  non-exportation  agreement  combined, 
America  would  win  the  day,  though  one  alone  would  be 
insufficient.  John  Adams,  Hawley,  and  Patrick  Henry, 
however,  were  of  opinion  that  the  proceedings  of  the 
Congress  were  very  useful  in  uniting  the  colonies,  but 
that  they  were  quite  insufficient  to  coerce  Great  Britain, 
and  that  the  question  must  ultimately  be  decided  by  the 
sword.2 

In  England,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was  to  the  very 
last  a  great  disbelief  in  the  reality  of  a  colonial  union. 
Nearly  all  the  rumours  of  violence  and  insubordination 
had  come  from  two  or  three  of  the  New  England  States 
and  from  Virginia,  and  it  was  supposed  that  in  the 
moment  of  crisis  the  other  States  would  hold  aloof,  and 
that  even  in  the  insurgent  colonies  a  large  party  of  ac- 
tive loyalists  could  be  fully  counted  on.  Provincial 
governors  being  surrounded  by  such  men  were  naturally 
inclined  to  underrate  the  capacity  or  the  sincerity  of 
their  opponents,  and  they  thought  that  the  wild  talk  of 
lawyers  and  demagogues  and  the  demonstrations  of  mob 
violence  would  speedily  collapse  before  firm  action. 
Hutchinson,  who  lived  in  the  centre  of  the  disaffection, 
and  who  ought  to  have  known  the  New  England  character 
as  well  as  any  man,  predicted  that  the  people  of  America 
would  not  attempt  to  resist  a  British  army,  and  that  if 
they  did  a  few  troops  would  be  sufficient  to  quell  them.3 
His  opinion  appears  to  have  had  considerable  weight 
with  George  III.,  and  it  greatly  strengthened  him  in 
his  determination  to  coerce.4  General  Gage  for  some 

1  Adams'  Works,  ii.  362.  •  Ibid.  p.  428. 

*  Tudor'sI/i/eo/O&s,  pp.  256,  *  Correspondence    of     George 

257.  III.  with  Lord  North,  i.  194, 195. 


190    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


CH.  XI. 


time  took  the  same  view.  He  assured  the  King  in  the 
beginning  of  1774  that  the  Americans  *  will  be  lions 
while  we  are  lambs,  but  if  we  take  the  resolute  part 
they  will  undoubtedly  prove  very  meek,5  and  he  thought 
that  *  four  regiments,  intended  to  relieve  as  many  regi- 
ments in  America,  if  sent  to  Boston '  would  be  *  suf- 
ficient to  prevent  any  disturbance.' 1  It  is  true  that 
Carleton,  the  Governor  of  Canada,  and  Tryon,  the 
Governor  of  New  York,  though  they  had  no  doubt  of 
the  ability  of  England  to  crush  insurrection,  warned  the 
Government  that  the  task  would  be  a  very  serious  one, 
and  would  require  much  time  and  large  armies,2  but  the 
prevailing  English  opinion  was  that  any  armed  move- 
ment could  be  easily  repressed.  Soldiers  spoke  of  the 
Americans  with  professional  arrogance,  as  if  volunteers 
and  militias  organised  by  skilful  and  experienced  officers, 
consisting  of  men  who  were  accustomed  from  childhood 
to  the  use  of  arms,  and  fighting  with  every  advantage 
of  numbers  and  situation,  were  likely  to  be  as  helpless 
before  regular  troops  as  a  Middlesex  mob.  Unfortu- 
nately, this  ignorant  boasting  was  not  confined  to  the 
mess-room,  and  Lord  Sandwich,  in  March  1775,  ex- 
pressed the  prevailing  infatuation  with  reckless  insolence 
in  the  House  of  Lords.  He  described  the  Americans  as 
1  raw,  undisciplined,  cowardly  men.'  He  said  that  the 
more  they  produced  in  the  field,  the  easier  would  be 
their  conquest.  He  accused  them  of  having  shown 
egregious  cowardice  at  the  siege  of  Louisburg,  and  he 
predicted  that  they  would  take  to  flight  at  the  very  sound 
of  a  cannon.3  Whether,  under  the  most  favourable  cir- 
cumstances, the  subjugation  would  produce  any  advan- 
tages commensurate  with  the  cost ;  whether,  assuming 

1  Correspondence  of  George  III.  •  Parl.  Hist,  xviii.  446,  447. 

with  Lord  North,  i.  164.  See,  too,  the  very  similar  speech 

"  See  their  opinions  in  Tudor's  ofltigby.  Walpole's  Last  Jour* 

Life  of  Otis,  p.  428.  naZs,  i.  481. 


CH.  xi.  HESITATION  IN  AMERICA.  191 

that  England  had  conquered  her  colonies,  she  could 
permanently  hold  them  contrary  to  their  will;  and 
whether  other  nations  were  likely  to  remain  passive 
during  the  struggle,  were  questions  which  appear  to 
have  scarcely  occurred  to  the  ordinary  English  mind. 

It  was,  however,  quite  true  that  in  America  there 
was  much  difference  of  opinion,  and  that  large  bodies 
were  only  dragged  with  extreme  reluctance  into  war. 
In  New  York  a  powerful  and  wealthy  party  sympathised 
strongly  with  the  Government,  and  they  succeeded  in 
June  1775  in  inducing  their  Assembly  to  refuse  its 
approbation  to  the  proceedings  of  the  Congress.1  Even 
in  New  England  a  few  meetings  were  held  repudiating 
the  proceedings  at  Philadelphia.2  Three  out  of  the  four 
delegates  of  South  Carolina  in  the  Congress  declined  to 
sign  the  non-importation  agreements  until  a  provision 
had  been  made  to  permit  the  exportation  of  rice  to 
Europe.3  The  Pennsylvanian  Quakers  recoiled  with 
horror  from  the  prospect  of  war,  and  the  Convention  of 
the  province  gave  instructions  to  their  delegates  in  the 
Congress,  which  were  eminently  marked  by  wisdom 
and  moderation.  They  desired  that  England  should 
repeal  absolutely  the  obnoxious  Acts;  but,  in  order 
that  such  a  measure  should  not  be  inconsistent  with 
her  dignity,  they  recommended  an  indemnity  to  the 
East  India  Company,  promised  obedience  to  the  Act  of 
Navigation,  disowned  with  abhorrence  all  idea  of  inde- 
pendence, and  declared  their  willingness  of  their  own 
accord  to  settle  an  annual  revenue  on  the  King,  subject 
to  the  approbation  of  Parliament.  Virginia  had  been 


1  Ram&ay,  i.  143.    See,  on  the  Documents  relating  to  the  Colo- 

remarkable  loyalty  shown  by  the  nial  History  of  New  York,  viii. 

New  York  Assembly  at  this  time,  631,  532. 

a  striking  letter  of  Lieutenant-  *  Adolphus,  ii.  211. 

Governor  Golden  to  Lord  Dart-  •  Adams,  ii.  385. 
mouth    (Feb.    1,  1775)    in   th* 


192    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

very  prominent  in  hurrying  the  colonies  into  war,  and 
its  great  orator,  Patrick  Henry,  exerted  all  his  powers 
in  stimulating  resistance ;  but  even  Virginia  insisted, 
in  opposition  to  John  Adams  and  to  other  New  Eng- 
landers,  on  limiting  the  list  of  grievances  to  Acts  passed 
since  1763,  in  order  that  there  might  be  some  possi- 
bility of  reconciliation.1 

Among  the  Episcopalians,  and  among  the  more 
wealthy  and  especially  the  older  planters,  the  English 
party  always  predominated,  and  a  large  section  of  the 
mercantile  class  detested  the  measures  which  suspended 
their  trade,  and  believed  that  America  could  not  subsist 
without  the  molasses,  sugar,  and  other  products  of  the 
British  dominions.  There  was  a  wide-spread  dislike  to  the 
levelling  principles  of  New  England,  to  the  arrogant, 
restless,  and  ambitious  policy  of  its  demagogues,  to  their 
manifest  desire  to  invent  or  discover  grievances,  foment 
quarrels,  and  keep  the  wound  open  and  festering.2  There 
were  brave  and  honest  men  in  America  who  were  proud 
of  the  great  and  free  Empire  to  which  they  belonged,  who 
had  no  desire  to  shrink  from  the  burden  of  maintaining 
it,  who  remembered  with  gratitude  all  the  English  blood 
that  had  been  shed  around  Quebec  and  Montreal,  and 
who,  with  nothing  to  hope  for  from  the  Crown,  were 
prepared  to  face  the  most  brutal  mob  violence  and  the 
invectives  of  a  scurrilous  Press,  to  risk  their  fortunes, 
their  reputations,  and  sometimes  even  their  lives,  in 
order  to  avert  civil  war  and  ultimate  separation.  Most 
of  them  ended  their  days  in  poverty  and  exile,  and  as 
the  supporters  of  a  beaten  cause  history  has  paid  but  a 
scanty  tribute  to  their  memory,  but  they  comprised 
some  of  the  best  and  ablest  men  America  has  ever  pro- 
duced, and  they  were  contending  for  an  ideal  which 


1  Adams'  Works,  ii.  384.  differences  in  Congress  in  Adama 

1  See  a  graphic  account  of  the       Works,  ii.  350,  410. 


CH.  xi.  AMERICAN  LOYALISTS.  193 

was  at  least  as  worthy  as  that  for  which  Washington 
fought.  It  was  the  maintenance  of  one  free,  industrial, 
and  pacific  empire,  comprising  the  whole  English  race, 
holding  the  richest  plains  of  Asia  in  subjection,  blend- 
ing all  that  was  most  venerable  in  an  ancient  civilisa- 
tion with  the  redundant  energies  of  a  youthful  society, 
and  likely  in  a  few  generations  to  outstrip  every  com- 
petitor and  acquire  an  indisputable  ascendency  on  the 
globe.  Such  an  ideal  may  have  been  a  dream,  but  it 
was  at  least  a  noble  one,  and  there  were  Americans 
who  were  prepared  to  make  any  personal  sacrifices 
rather  than  assist  in  destroying  it. 

Conspicuous  among  these  politicians  was  Galloway, 
one  of  the  ablest  delegates  from  Pennsylvania,  who  saw 
clearly  that  a  change  in  the  American  Constitution 
was  necessary  if  England  was  to  remain  united  to  her 
colonies.  He  proposed  that  a  President-General  ap- 
pointed by  the  Crown  should  be  placed  over  the  whole 
group  of  American  colonies ;  that  a  Grand  Council, 
competent  to  tax  the  colonies  and  to  legislate  on  all 
matters  relating  to  more  colonies  than  one,  should  be 
elected  by  the  Provincial  Assemblies ;  that  Parliament 
should  have  the  right  of  revising  the  Acts  of  this  Grand 
Council,  and  that  the  Council  should  have  the  right  of 
negative  upon  any  parliamentary  measure  relating  to 
the  colonies.1  The  proposal  at  first  met  with  consider- 
able support  in  the  Congress,  and  it  was  finally  defeated 
by  a  majority  of  only  one  vote.  Dickinson,  whose 
*  Farmer's  Letters'  had  been  one  of  the  ablest  state- 
ments of  the  American  case,  shrank  with  horror  from 
the  idea  of  rebellion.  He  bitterly  accused  John  Adams 
and  the  other  New  Englanders  of  opposing  all  measures 
of  reconciliation,  and  declared  that  he  and  his  friends 
would  no  longer  co-operate  with  them,  but  would  carry 

1  Adams'  Works,  ii.  387-389.   Galloway's  Examination,  pp.  47-49. 


194    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,   en.  xi. 

on  the  opposition  in  their  own  way.1  The  remarkable 
eloquence  and  the  touching  and  manifest  earnestness 
of  the  letters  which  appeared  at  Boston  under  the  signa- 
ture of  *  Massachusettensis,'  urging  the  people  to  shrink 
from  the  great  calamity  of  civil  war,  had  for  a  time 
some  influence  upon  opinion.  As  usual,  however,  in 
such  a  crisis,  the  more  energetic  and  determined  men 
directed  the  movement,  and  the  fierce  spirit  of  New 
England  substantially  triumphed  over  all  opposition. 
The  Congress  agreed,  it  is  true,  to  profess  its  loyalty, 
to  petition  the  King,  and  to  limit  its  grievances  to 
measures  carried  since  1763,  but  it  offered  no  basis 
of  compromise ;  it  demanded  only  an  unqualified  sub- 
mission, and  it  enumerated  so  long  a  list  of  laws  that 
must  be  repealed  that  it  was  quite  impossible  that  Par- 
liament could  comply.  General  Gage  deemed  the  aspect 
of  affairs  so  threatening  that  he  suspended  by  proclama- 
tion the  writs  which  he  had  issued  summoning  the 
Assembly  of  Massachusetts  to  meet  at  Salem  in  October 
1774.  But  a  provincial  congress  was  at  once  convened. 
It  was  obeyed  as  if  it  had  been  a  regular  branch  of  the 
Legislature,  and  it  proceeded  to  organise  the  revolution. 
Measures  were  taken  for  enlisting  soldiers  for  the  de- 
fence of  the  province;  general  officers  were  selected. 
It  was  resolved  to  enroll  as  speedily  as  possible  an 
army  of  12,000  men  within  the  province,  and  Rhode 
Island,  New  Hampshire,  and  Connecticut  were  asked 
to  join  to  raise  the  number  of  men  to  20,000.  A  com- 
mittee was  at  the  same  time  formed  for  correspond- 
ing with  the  people  of  Canada,  and  a  circular  was  sent 
round  to  all  the  New  England  clergy  asking  them  to 
use  their  influence  in  the  cause.2 

Before  the  end  of  the  year  intelligence  arrived  that 
a  proclamation  had  been  issued  in  England  forbidding 


1  Adams'  Works,  ii.  410,  419.  «  Kamsay,  i.  130. 


CH.  xi.  THE  WINTER   1774-1775.  195 

the  exportation  of  military  stores,  and  it  was  at  once 
responded  to  by  open  violence.  In  Rhode  Island,  by 
order  of  the  Provincial  Assembly,  forty  cannon  with  a 
large  amount  of  ammunition  were  removed  from  Fort 
George,  which  defended  the  harbour,  and  placed  under 
a  colonial  guard  at  Providence.  The  captain  of  a 
King's  ship  which  was  stationed  off  the  province  de- 
manded an  explanation.  The  Governor  replied  that 
the  cannon  had  been  removed  lest  the  King's  officers 
should  seize  them,  and  that  they  would  be  used  against 
any  enemy  of  the  colony.  In  New  Hampshire  a  small 
fort  called  William  and  Mary,  garrisoned  by  one  officer 
and  five  private  soldiers,  was  surprised  and  captured 
by  a  large  body  of  armed  colonists,  and  the  military 
stores  which  it  contained  were  carried  away.  Mills  for 
manufacturing  gunpowder  and  arms  were  set  up  in 
several  provinces,  and  immediate  orders  were  given  for 
casting  sixty  heavy  cannon. 

Though  no  blood  had  yet  been  shed,  it  is  no  exagge- 
ration to  say  that  the  war  had  already  begun,  and  in 
England  the  indignation  rose  fierce  and  high.  Parlia- 
ment had  been  unexpectedly  dissolved,  and  the  new 
Parliament  met  on  November  30,  1774,  but  no  serious 
measure  relating  to  America  was  taken  till  January 
1775,  when  the  House  reassembled  after  the  Christmas 
vacation.  The  ministers  had  a  large  majority,  and 
even  apart  from  party  interest  the  genuine  feeling  of 
both  Houses  ran  strongly  against  the  Americans.  Yet 
at  no  previous  period  were  they  more  powerfully  de- 
fended. I  have  already  noticed  that  Chatham,  having 
returned  to  active  politics  after  his  long  illness  in  1774, 
had  completely  identified  himself  with  the  American 
cause,  and  had  advocated  with  all  his  eloquence  mea- 
sures of  conciliation.  He  reiterated  on  every  occasion 
his  old  opinion  that  self-taxation  is  the  essential  con- 
dition of  political  freedom,  described  the  conduct  of 


196    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xi. 

the  British  Legislature  in  establishing  Catholicism  in 
Canada  as  not  less  outrageous  than  if  it  had  repealed 
the  Great  Charter  or  the  Bill  of  Eights,1  and  moved  an 
address  to  the  King  praying  that  he  would  as  soon  as 
possible,  '  in  order  to  open  the  way  towards  a  happy 
settlement  of  the  dangerous  troubles  in  America,'  with- 
.  draw  the  British  troops  stationed  in  Boston.  In  the 
^3  course  of  his  speech  he  represented  the  question  of 
American  taxation  as  the  root-cause  of  the  whole 
division,  and  maintained  that  the  only  real  basis  of 
conciliation  was  to  be  found  in  a  distinct  recognition  of 
the  principle  that  '  taxation  is  theirs,  and  commercial 
regulation  ours  ; '  that  England  has  a  supreme  right  of 
regulating  the  commerce  and  navigation  of  America, 
^j  and  that  the  Americans  have  an  inalienable  right  to 
their  own  property.  He  fully  justified  their  resistance, 
predicted  that  all  attempts  to  coerce  them  would  fail, 
and  eulogised  the  Congress  at  Philadelphia  as  worthy 
of  the  greatest  periods  of  antiquity.  Only  eighteen 
peers  voted  for  the  address,  while  sixty-eight  opposed  it. 
On  February  1  he  reappeared  with  an  elaborate  Bill 
for  settling  the  troubles  in  America.  It  asserted  in 
strong  terms  the  right  of  Parliament  to  bind  the  colonies 
in  all  matters  of  imperial  concern,  and  especially  in  all 
matters  of  commerce  and  navigation.  It  pronounced 
the  new  colonial  doctrine  that  the  Crown  had  no  right 
to  send  British  soldiers  to  the  colonies  without  the  assent 
of  the  Provincial  Assemblies,  dangerous  and  unconstitu- 
tional in  the  highest  degree,  but  at  the  same  time  it  re- 
cognised the  sole  right  of  the  colonists  to  tax  themselves, 
guaranteed  the  inviolability  of  their  charters,  and  made 
the  tenure  of  their  judges  the  same  as  in  England.  It 
proposed  to  make  the  Congress  which  had  met  at  Phila- 
delphia an  official  and  permanent  body,  and  asked  it  to 


1  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv.  352. 


CH.  xi.  CONCILIATORY  PROPOSALS  REJECTED.  197 

make  a  free  grant  for  imperial  purposes.  England, 
in  return,  was  to  reduce  the  Admiralty  Courts  to  their 
ancient  limits,  and  to  suspend  for  the  present  the  differ- 
ent Acts  complained  of  by  the  colonists.  The  Bill  was 
not  even  admitted  to  a  second  reading. 

Several  other  propositions  tending  towards  concilia- 
tion were  made  in  this  session.  On  March  22,  1775, 
Burke,  in  one  of  his  greatest  speeches,  moved  a  series  of 
resolutions  recommending  a  repeal  of  the  recent  Acts 
complained  of  in  America,  reforming  the  Admiralty 
Court  and  the  position  of  the  judges,  and  leaving 
American  taxation  to  the  American  Assemblies,  without 
touching  upon  any  question  of  abstract  right.  A  few 
days  later,  Hartley  moved  a  resolution  calling  upon  the 
Government  to  make  requisitions  to  the  colonial  As- 
semblies to  provide  of  their  own  authority  for  their  own 
defence  ;  and  Lord  Camden  in  the  House  of  Lords  and 
Sir  G.  Savile  in  the  House  of  Commons  endeavoured  to 
obtain  a  repeal  of  the  Quebec  Act.  All  these  attempts, 
however,  were  defeated  by  enormous  majorities.  The 
petition  of  Congress  to  the  King  was  referred  to  Parlia- 
ment, which  refused  to  receive  it,  and  Franklin,  after 
vain  efforts  to  effect  a  reconciliation,  returned  from  Eng- 
land to  America.  The  Legislature  of  New  York>  sepa- 
rating from  the  other  colonies,  made  a  supreme  effort  to 
heal  the  wound  by  a  remonstrance  which  was  presented 
by  Burke  on  May  15.  Though  strongly  asserting  the 
sole  right  of  the  colonies  to  tax  themselves,  and  com- 
plaining of  the  many  recent  Acts  inconsistent  with  their 
freedom,  it  was  drawn  up  in  terms  that  were  studiously 
moderate  and  respectful.  It  disclaimed  *  the  most  dis- 
tant desire  of  independence  of  the  parent  kingdom/  It 
acknowledged  fully  the  general  superintending  power 
of  the  English  Parliament,  and  its  right  *  to  regulate 
the  trade  of  the  colonies,  so  as  to  make  it  subservient  to 
the  interest  of  the  mother  country/  and  it  expressed  the 


198    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  n. 

readiness  of  New  York  to  bear  its  *  full  proportion  of 
aids  to  the  Crown  for  the  public  service/  though  it  made 
no  allusion  to  the  project  of  supporting  an  American 
army.  The  Government,  however,  induced  the  House 
of  Commons  to  refuse  to  receive  it,  on  the  ground  that 
it  denied  the  complete  legislative  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment in  the  colonies  as  it  had  been  defined  by  the 
Declaratory  Act. 

Parliament  at  the  same  time  took  stringent  mea- 
sures to  enforce  obedience.  It  pronounced  Massachu- 
setts in  a  state  of  rebellion,  and  promised  to  lend  the 
ministers  every  aid  in  subjugating  it.  It  voted  about 
6,000  additional  men  for  the  land  and  sea  service; 
it  answered  the  non-importation  and  non-exportation 
agreements  of  the  colonies  by  an  Act  restraining  the 
New  England  States  from  all  trade  with  Great  Britain, 
Ireland,  and  the  West  Indies,  and  from  all  participation 
in  the  Newfoundland  fisheries,  and  it  soon  after,  on  the 
arrival  of  fresh  intelligence  from  America,  extended  the 
same  disabilities  to  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  Mary- 
land, Virginia,  and  South  Carolina.  It  was  also  resolved 
that  the  British  force  in  Boston  should  be  at  once  raised 
to  10,000  men,  which  it  was  vainly  thought  would  be 
sufficient  to  enforce  obedience. 

At  the  same  time  North  was  careful  to  announce 
that  these  coercive  measures  would  at  once  cease  upon 
the  submission  of  the  colonies,  and  on  February  20, 
1775,  he  had,  to  the  great  surprise  of  Parliament,  him- 
self introduced  a  conciliatory  resolution  which  was  very 
unpalatable  to  many  of  his  followers  and  very  inconsis- 
tent with  some  of  his  own  earlier  speeches,  but  by  which 
he  hoped,  if  not  to  appease,  at  least  to  divide,  the  Ameri- 
cans. His  proposition  was,  that  if  and  as  long  as  any 
colony  thought  fit  of  its  own  accord  to  make  such  a 
contribution  to  the  common  defence  of  the  Empire, 
and  such  a  fixed  provision  for  the  support  of  the  civil 


CH.  xi.     CONCILIATORY  MEASURE  OF  NORTH.      199 

government  and  administration  of  justice,  as  met  the 
approbation  of  Parliament,  it  should  be  exempted  from 
all  imperial  taxation  for  the  purpose  of  revenue. 

The  reception  of  this  conciliatory  measure  was  very 
remarkable.  Hitherto  Lord  North  had  guided  the 
House  with  an  almost  absolute  sway,  and  on  American 
questions  the  Opposition  seldom  could  count  upon  90 
votes,  while  the  ministers  had  usually  about  260.  The 
disclosure,  however,  of  the  conciliatory  resolution  pro- 
duced an  immediate  revolt  in  the  ministerial  ranks. 
Six  times  Lord  North  rose  in  vain  efforts  to  appease 
the  storm.  The  King's  friends  denounced  him  as  be- 
traying the  cause.  The  Bedford  faction  was  expected 
every  moment  to  fly  into  open  rebellion,  and  Chatham 
states  that  for  about  two  hours  it  was  the  prevailing  be- 
lief in  the  House  of  Commons  that  the  minister  would 
be  left  in  a  small  minority.  The  storm,  however,  had  a 
sudden  and  most  significant  ending.  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot, 
who  was  known  to  be  in  the  intimate  confidence  of  the 
King,  declared  for  the  Bill,  and  the  old  majority  speedily 
rallied  around  the  minister.1 

At  an  earlier  stage  of  the  dispute  this  resolution 
might  have  been  accepted  as  a  reasonable  compromise, 
but  in  the  midst  of  the  coercive  measures  that  had  been 
adopted  it  pleased  no  one.  Burke  and  the  Whig  party 
denounced  it  as  not  stating  what  sum  the  colonists  were 
expected  to  pay,  leaving  them  to  bid  against  one  another, 
and  to  bargain  with  the  mother  country,  and  in  the 
meantime  holding  them  in  duress  with  fleets  and  armies, 
like  prisoners  who  had  not  yet  paid  their  ransom. 
Barre  assailed  it  with  great  bitterness,  as  intended  for 
no  other  object  than  to  excite  divisions  in  America. 
The  colonists  themselves  repudiated  it  as  interfering 

1  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv.      ter,  1775,  pp.  95-98.    Walpole'g 
403,  404.     See,  too,  Gibbon  to      Last  Journals,  i.  463,  464. 
Holroyd,  Feb.  25,  Annual 
15 


200    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  ar.i. 

with,  their  absolute  right  of  disposing  of  their  own  pro- 
perty as  they  pleased,  and  most  later  historians  have 
treated  it  as  wholly  delusive.1 

With  this  view  I  am  unable  to  concur.  The  proposi- 
tion appears  to  me  to  have  been  a  real  and  considerable 
step  towards  conciliation.  It  was  accepted  as  such  by 
Governor  Pownall.  who  was  one  of  the  ablest  and  most 
moderate  of  the  defenders  of  the  colonies  in  Parliament,2 
and  it  was  recommended  to  the  Americans  by  Lord  Dart- 
mouth in  language  of  much  force  and  of  evident  sincerity. 
He  argued  that  the  colonies  owed  much  of  their  great- 
ness to  English  protection,  that  it  was  but  justice  that 
they  should  in  their  turn  contribute  according  to  their 
respective  abilities  to  the  common  defence,  and  that 
their  own  welfare  and  interests  demanded  that  their  civil 
establishments  should  be  supported  with  a  becoming 
dignity.  Parliament,  he  says,  leaves  each  colony  *  to 
judge  of  the  ways  and  means  of  making  due  provision 
for  these  purposes,  reserving  to  itself  a  discretionary 
power  of  approving  or  disapproving  what  shall  be  offered.' 
It  determines  nothing  about  the  specific  sum  to  be 
raised.  The  King  trusts  that  adequate  provision  will 
be  made  by  the  colonies,  and  that  it  will  be  '  proposed 
in  such  a  way  as  to  increase  or  diminish  according  as 
the  public  burthens  of  this  kingdom  are  from  time  to 
time  augmented  or  reduced,  in  so  far  as  those  burthens 
consist  of  taxes  and  duties  which  are  not  a  security  for 
the  National  Debt.  By  such  a  mode  of  contribution,' 
he  adds, '  the  colonies  will  have  full  security  that  they 
can  never  be  required  to  tax  themselves  without  Parlia- 
ment taxing  the  subjects  of  this  kingdom  in  a  far  greater 
proportion.'  He  assured  them  that  any  proposal  of  this 
nature  from  any  colony  would  be  received  with  every 


1  See  e.g.  Lord  Russell's  Life          2  See  his  very  able  speech, 
of  Fox,  i.  85,  86.  Parl.  Hist,  xviii.  322-329. 


CH.  xi.  BATTLE   OF  LEXINGTON.  201 

possible  indulgence,  provided  it  was  unaccompanied  by 
declarations  inconsistent  with  parliamentary  authority.1 

The  letter  of  Lord  Dartmouth  to  the  governors  of 
the  colonies  was  written  in  March.  Little  more  than  a 
month  later  the  first  blood  was  shed  at  Lexington.  On 
the  night  of  April  18,  1775,  General  Gage  sent  about 
800  soldiers  to  capture  a  magazine  of  stores  which  had 
been  collected  for  the  use  of  the  provincial  army  in  the 
town  of  Concord,  about  eighteen  miles  from  Boston. 
The  road  lay  through  the  little  village  of  Lexington, 
where,  about  five  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  19th, 
the  advance  guard  of  the  British  found  a  party  of  sixty 
or  seventy  armed  volunteers  drawn  up  to  oppose  them, 
on  a  green  beside  the  road.  They  refused  when  sum- 
moned to  disperse,  and  the  English  at  once  fired  a 
volley,  which  killed  or  wounded  sixteen  of  their  number. 
The  detachment  then  proceeded  to  Concord,  where  it 
succeeded  in  spiking  two  cannon,  casting  into  the  river 
five  hundred  pounds  of  ball  and  sixty  barrels  of  powder, 
and  destroying  a  large  quantity  of  flour,  and  it  then 
prepared  to  return.  The  alarm  had,  however,  now  been 
given ;  the  whole  country  was  roused.  Great  bodies  of 
yeomen  and  militia  flocked  in  to  the  assistance  of  the 
provincials.  From  farmhouses  and  hedges  and  from 
the  shelter  of  stone  walls  bullets  poured  upon  the  tired 
retreating  troops,  and  a  complete  disaster  would  pro- 
bably have  occurred  had  they  not  been  reinforced  at 
Lexington  by  900  men  and  two  cannon  under  Lord 
Percy.  As  it  was  the  British  lost  65  killed,  180 
wounded,  and  28  made  prisoners,  while  the  American 
loss  was  less  than  90  men. 

The  whole  province  was  now  in  arms.  The  Massa- 
chusetts Congress  at  once  resolved  that  the  New  England 

1  This  letter  is  printed  in  the      645-547.    Force's  American  Ar» 
Documents  relating  to  the  Colo-      chives  (4th  series),  ii.  27,  28. 
nial  History  of  New  York,  viii. 


202    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,   en,  xi. 

army  should  be  raised  to  30,000  men,  and  thousands  of 
brave  and  ardent  yeomen  were  being  rapidly  drilled  into 
good  soldiers.  The  American  camp  at  Cambridge  con- 
tained many  experienced  soldiers  who  had  learnt  their 
profession  in  the  great  French  war,  and  very  many 
others  who  in  the  ranks  of  the  militia  had  already  acquired 
the  rudiments  of  military  knowledge,  and  even  when 
they  had  no  previous  training,  the  recruits  were  widely 
different  from  the  rude  peasants  who  filled  the  armies  of 
England.  As  an  American  military  writer  truly  said, 
the  middle  and  lower  classes  in  England,  owing  to  the 
operation  of  the  game  laws  and  to  the  circumstances  of 
their  lives,  were  in  general  almost  as  ignorant  of  the  use 
of  a  musket  as  of  the  use  of  a  catapult.  The  New  England 
yeomen  were  accustomed  to  firearms  from  their  child- 
hood ;  they  were  invariably  skilful  in  the  use  of  spade, 
hatchet,  and  pickaxe,  so  important  in  military  opera- 
tions ;  and  their  great  natural  quickness  and  the  high 
level  of  intelligence  which  their  excellent  schools  had 
produced,  made  it  certain  that  they  would  not  be  long 
in  mastering  their  military  duties.  The  whole  country 
was  practically  at  their  disposal.  All  who  were  suspected 
of  Toryism  were  ordered  to  surrender  their  weapons. 
General  Gage  was  blockaded  in  Boston,  and  he  remained 
strictly  on  the  defensive,  waiting  for  reinforcements 
from  England,  which  only  arrived  at  the  end  of  May. 
Even  then,  he  for  some  time  took  no  active  measures, 
but  contented  himself  with  offering  pardon  to  all  in- 
surgents who  laid  down  their  arms,  except  Samuel 
Adams  and  John  Hancock,  and  with  proclaiming 
martial  law  in  Massachusetts.  He  at  length,  however, 
determined  to  extend  his  lines,  so  as  to  include  and 
fortify  a  very  important  post,  which  by  a  strange  negli- 
gence had  been  left  hitherto  unoccupied. 

On  a  narrow  peninsula  to  the  north  of  Boston,  but 
separated  from  it  by  rather  less  than  half  a  mile  of 


CH.  xi.        BATTLE  OF  BUNKER'S  HILL.         203 

water,  lay  the  little  town  of  Charleston,  behind  which 
rose  two  small  connected  hills,  which  commanded  a  great 
part  both  of  the  town  and  harbour  of  Boston.  Breed's 
Hill,  which  was  nearest  to  Charleston,  was  about 
seventy-five  feet,  Bunker's  Hill  was  about  one  hundred 
and  ten  feet,  in  height.  The  peninsula,  which  was 
little  more  than  a  mile  long,  was  connected  with  the 
mainland  by  a  narrow  causeway.  Cambridge,  the  head- 
quarters of  the  American  forces,  was  by  road  about  four 
miles  from  Bunker's  Hill,  but  much  of  the  intervening 
space  was  occupied  by  American  outposts.  The  posses- 
sion, under  these  circumstances,  of  Bunker's  Hill,  was  a 
matter  of  great  military  importance,  and  Gage  deter- 
mined to  fortify  it.  The  Americans  learnt  his  intention, 
and  determined  to  defeat  it. 

On  the  night  of  June  16,  an  American  force  under 
the  command  of  Colonel  Prescott,  and  accompanied  by 
some  skilful  engineers  and  by  a  few  field-guns,  silently 
occupied  Breed's  Hill  and  threw  up  a  strong  redoubt 
before  daylight  revealed  their  presence  to  the  British. 
Next  day,  after  much  unnecessary  delay,  a  detachment 
under  General  Howe  was  sent  from  Boston  to  dislodge 
them.  The  Americans  had  in  the  meantime  received 
some  reinforcements  from  their  camp,  but  the  whole 
force  upon  the  hill  is  said  not  to  have  exceeded  1,500 
men.  Most  of  them  were  inexperienced  volunteers. 
Many  of  them  were  weary  with  a  long  night's  toil,  and 
they  had  been  exposed  for  hours  to  a  harassing  though 
ineffectual  fire  from  the  ships  in  the  harbour ;  but  they 
were  now  strongly  entrenched  behind  a  redoubt  and  a 
breastwork.  The  British  engaged  on  this  memorable 
day  consisted  in  all  of  between  2,000  and  3,000  regular 
troops,  fresh  from  the  barracks,  and  supported  by  ar- 
tillery. The  town  of  Charleston,  having  been  occupied 
by  some  American  riflemen,  who  poured  their  fire  upon 
the  English  from  the  shelter  of  the  houses,  was  burnt 


204       ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.       en.  xi. 

by  order  of  General  Howe,  and  its  flames  cast  a  ghastly 
splendour  upon  the  scene.  The  English  were  foolishly 
encumbered  by  heavy  knapsacks  with  three  days' 
provisions.  Instead  of  endeavouring  to  cut  off  the 
Americans  by  occupying  the  neck  of  land  to  the  rear  of 
Breed's  Hill,  they  climbed  the  steep  and  difficult  ascent 
in  front  of  the  battery,  struggling  through  the  long 
tangled  grass  beneath  a  burning  sun,  and  exposed  at 
every  step  to  the  fire  of  a  sheltered  enemy.  The 
Americans  waited  till  their  assailants  were  within  a 
few  rods  of  the  entrenchment,  when  they  greeted  them 
with  a  fire  so  deadly  and  so  sustained  that  the  British 
line  twice  recoiled,  broken,  intimidated,  and  disordered. 
The  third  attack  was  more  successful.  The  position  was 
carried  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  The  Americans 
were  put  to  flight,  and  five  out  of  their  six  cannon  were 
taken.  But  the  victory  was  dearly  purchased.  On  the 
British  side  1,054  men,  including  89  commissioned 
officers,  fell.  The  Americans  only  admitted  a  loss  of 
449  men ;  and  they  contended  that,  if  they  had  been 
properly  reinforced,  and  if  their  ammunition  had  not 
begun  to  fail,  they  would  have  held  the  position.1 

The  battle  of  Breed's,  or,  as  it  is  commonly  called, 
of  Bunker's  Hill,  though  extremely  bloody  in  proportion 
to  the  number  of  men  engaged,  can  hardly  be  said  to 
present  any  very  remarkable  military  character,  and 
in  a  great  European  war  it  would  have  been  almost 
unnoticed.  Few  battles,  however,  have  had  more 
important  consequences.  It  roused  at  once  the  fierce 
instinct  of  combat  in  America,  weakened  seriously  the 
only  British  army  in  New  England,  and  dispelled  for 
ever  the  almost  superstitious  belief  in  the  impossibility 
of  encountering  regular  troops  with  hastily  levied  volun- 


1  See  General  Gage's  despatch.      part  ii.,  pp.  132,133.    Ramsay, 
American  Remembrancer,  1776,      Stedman,  and  Bancroft. 


CH.  xi.  CONGRESS  OF   1775.  205 

teers.  The  ignoble  taunts  which  had  been  directed 
against  the  Americans  were  for  ever  silenced.  No  one 
questioned  the  conspicuous  gallantry  with  which  the 
provincial  troops  had  supported  a  long  fire  from  the 
ships  and  awaited  the  charge  of  the  enemy,  and  British 
soldiers  had  been  twice  driven  back  in  disorder  before 
their  fire.  From  this  time  the  best  judges  predicted 
the  ultimate  success  of  America. 

On  May  10  the  new  Continental  Congress  had  met 
at  Philadelphia,  and  it  at  once  occupied  itself,  with  an 
energy  arid  an  industry  that  few  legislative  bodies  have 
ever  equalled,  in  organising  the  war.1  Like  the  former 
Congress,  its  debates  were  secret,  and  its  decisions  were 
ultimately  unanimous.  New  York,  which  for  a  time 
had  flinched,  was  now  fully  rallied  to  the  cause,  and 
before  the  close  of  the  Congress,  Georgia  for  the  first 
time  openly  joined  the  twelve  other  colonies.  The 
conciliatory  offer  of  Lord  North  was  emphatically  re- 
jected. The  colonies,  it  was  said,  had  the  exclusive 
right,  not  only  of  granting  their  own  money,  but  also 
of  deliberating  whether  they  will  make  any  gift,  for 
what  purpose  and  to  what  amount;  and  'it  is  not  just 
that  they  should  be  required  to  oblige  themselves  to 
other  contributions,  while  Great  Britain  possesses  a 
monopoly  of  their  trade.'  Still  professing  to  have  no 
desire  to  separate  from  Great  Britain,  the  Congress 
drew  up  another  petition,  expressing  deep  loyalty  to  the 
King,  and  addresses  to  the  people  of  Great  Britain, 
Ireland,  and  Canada,  and  to  the  Assembly  of  Jamaica, 

1  John  Adams,  describing  his  and  from  six  to  ten  in  committees 

life  at  Philadelphia  to  his  wife,  again.     I  don't  mention  this  to 

in  December   1775,  says :  '  The  make  you  think  me  a  man  of 

whole  Congress  is  taken  up  al-  importance,  because  not  I  alone, 

most,  in  different    committees,  but  the  whole  Congress,  is  thus 

from  seven  to  ten  in  the  morn-  employed.' — Adams'     Familiar 

ing.    From  ten  to  four,  or  some-  Letters,  p.  127. 
times  five,  we  are  in  Congress, 


206    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

asserting  that  the  British  had  been  the  aggressors  at 
Lexington,  and  had  destroyed  every  vestige  of  consti- 
tutional liberty  in  Massachusetts,  and  that  America,  in 
taking  up  arms,  acted  strictly  in  self-defence.  It  for- 
bade the  colonists  to  have  any  commercial  intercourse 
with  those  ports  of  America  which  had  not  observed  the 
non-importation  agreement  of  the  preceding  year.  It 
forbade  them  to  furnish  any  provisions  or  other  ne- 
cessaries to  British  fishermen  on  their  coast,  or  to  any- 
one connected  with  the  British  army  or  navy.  It  at 
the  same  time  ordered  that  ten  companies  of  riflemen 
from  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  Virginia,  should  be 
raised  to  reinforce  the  New  England  army  at  Cambridge ; 
made  rules  for  the  regulation  of  the  revolutionary  army ; 
determined  upon  an  expedition  to  Canada ;  issued  bills 
of  credit  to  the  amount  of  3,000,000  Spanish  dollars ; 
established  an  American  post-office  with  Franklin  at  its 
head;  appointed  a  number  of  general  officers,  and, 
above  all,  selected  George  Washington  as  Commander- 
in-chief  of  the  American  army. 

The  unanimity  with  which  these  measures  were  de- 
creed was  due  to  the  great  forbearance  of  many  mem- 
bers of  the  Congress,  for  the  secret  debates  of  that  body 
were  distracted  by  the  bitterest  divisions.  As  John 
Adams  wrote,  '  Every  important  step  was  opposed  and 
carried  by  bare  majorities/  and  a  large  amount  of  jea- 
lousy and  suspicion  was  displayed.1  Adams,  at  the  head 
of  the  New  England  party,  maintained  that  America 
should  at  once  declare  her  independence,  form  herself 
into  a  confederation,  seize  all  the  Crown  officers  as  host- 
ages, and  enter  into  negotiations  with  France  and  Spain; 
and  letters  which  he  had  written  expressing  these  views 

1  Autobiography.        Adams'  private  friendships  and  enmities, 

Works,  ii.  503.   '  It  is  almost  im-  and  provincial  views   and  pre- 

possible,'  wrote  Adams,  *  to  move  judices,  intermingle  in  the  con- 

anything  but  you  instantly  see  sultation.' — Ibid.  ii.  448. 


CH.  xi.  CONGRESS  OF   1775.  207 

fell  into  the  hands  of  the  British  Government.  Dickin- 
son, however,  supported  by  Pennsylvania  and  by  some 
of  the  other  Middle  States,  insisted  upon  drawing  up 
another  petition  to  the  King,  and  making  a  last  effort 
towards  reconciliation ;  and  after  a  very  angry  resist- 
ance, Adams  was  obliged  to  yield.  Zubly,  a  Swiss 
clergyman,  who  was  prominent  among  the  delegates  of 
Georgia,  appears  to  have  gone  still  further.  '  There  are 
persons  in  America,'  he  complained,  *  who  wish  to  break 
off  with  Great  Britain ;  a  proposal  has  been  made  to 
apply  to  France  and  Spain  ;  before  I  agree  to  it  I  will 
inform  my  constituents.  I  apprehend  the  man  who 
should  propose  it  would  be  torn  to  pieces,  like  De  Witt.'1 
He  objected  strongly  to  the  proposed  invasion  of  Canada 
as  an  unjustifiable  aggression,  and  to  the  non-importa- 
tion and  non-exportation  agreements  as  certain  to  ruin 
America.  He  openly  expressed  his  hope  that  the  pre- 
sent winter  would  witness  a  reconciliation  with  the 
mother  country ;  and  he  declared  his  opinion  that  c  a 
republican  government  is  little  better  than  government 
of  devils.'  2  The  trade  agreements  were  debated  vehe- 
mently through  several  days,  and  a  large  proportion  of 
the  members  appear  to  have  held  that  the  non-expor- 
tation agreement  would  render  it  impossible  for  the 
colonies  to  obtain  the  money  which  was  necessary  for 
carrying  on  the  war.  Negotiations  with  France  and  Spain 
were  spoken  of,  but  as  yet  there  was  great  doubt  about 
the  disposition  of  these  Powers.  It  is  curious,  amid  the 
storm  of  invective  which  at  this  time  was  directed  against 
English  tyranny,  to  read  the  opinion  of  Gadsden,  one  of 
the  representatives  of  South  Carolina,  who  was  most 
active  in  promoting  the  Eevolution:  '  France  and  Spain/ 
he  said,  '  would  be  glad  to  see  Great  Britain  despotic  in 
America.  Our  being  in  a  better  state  than  their  colo- 

>  Adams'  WorJcs,  ii.  459.  a  Ibid.  ii.  466, 469,  472. 


208    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

nies,  occasions  complaints  among  them,  insurrections 
and  rebellions.  But  these  Powers  would  be  glad  we 
were  an  independent  State.5 1 

Perhaps  the  most  difficult  question,  however,  was 
the  appointment  of  a  commander-in-chief ;  and  on  no 
other  subject  did  the  Congress  exhibit  more  conspicuous 
wisdom.  When  only  twenty-three,  Washington  had  been 
appointed  commander  of  the  Virginian  forces  against 
the  French ;  and  in  the  late  war,  though  he  had  met 
with  one  serious  disaster,  and  had  no  opportunity  of 
obtaining  any  very  brilliant  military  reputation,  he  had 
always  shown  himself  an  eminently  brave  and  skilful 
soldier.  His  great  modesty  and  taciturnity  kept  him  in 
the  background,  both  in  the  Provincial  Legislature  and 
in  the  Continental  Congress  ;  but  though  his  voice  was 
scarcely  ever  heard  in  debate,  his  superiority  was  soon 
felt  in  the  practical  work  of  the  committees.  *  If  you 
speak  of  solid  information  or  sound  judgment/  said 
Patrick  Henry  about  this  time,  l  Colonel  Washington  is 
unquestionably  the  greatest  man  in  the  Congress.'  He 
appeared  in  the  Assembly  in  uniform,  and  in  military 
matters  his  voice  had  an  almost  decisive  weight.  Several 
circumstances  distinguished  him  from  other  officers,  who 
in  military  service  might  have  been  his  rivals.  He  was 
of  an  old  American  family.  He  was  a  planter  of  wealth 
and  social  position,  and  being  a  Virginian,  his  appoint- 
ment was  a  great  step  towards  enlisting  that  important 
colony  cordially  in  the  cause.  The  capital  question  now 
pending  in  America  was,  how  far  the  other  colonies 
would  support  New  England  in  the  struggle.  In  the 
preceding  March,  Patrick  Henry  had  carried  a  resolu- 
tion for  embodying  and  reorganising  the  Virginia  militia, 
and  had  openly  proclaimed  that  an  appeal  to  arms  was 
inevitable ;  but  as  yet  New  England  had  borne  almost 

1  Adams'  Works,  ii.  474. 


CH.  xi.  GEORGE  WASHINGTON.  209 

the  whole  burden.  The  army  at  Cambridge  was  a  New 
England  army,  and  General  Ward,  who  commanded  it, 
had  been  appointed  by  Massachusetts.  Even  if  Ward 
were  superseded,  there  were  many  New  England  com- 
petitors for  the  post  of  commander ;  the  army  naturally 
desired  a  chief  of  their  own  province,  and  there  were 
divisions  and  hostilities  among  the  New  England  depu- 
ties.1 The  great  personal  merit  of  Washington  and  the 
great  political  importance  of  securing  Virginia,  deter- 
mined the  issue ;  and  the  New  England  deputies  ulti- 
mately took  a  leading  part  in  the  appointment.  The 
second  place  was  given  to  General  Ward,  and  the  third 
to  Charles  Lee,  an  English  soldier  of  fortune  who  had 
lately  purchased  land  in  Virginia  and  embraced  the 
American  cause  with  great  passion.  Lee  had  probably 
a  wider  military  experience  than  any  other  officer  in 
America,  but  he  was  a  man  of  no  settled  principles,  and 
his  great  talents  were  marred  by  a  very  irritable  and 
capricious  temper. 

To  the  appointment  of  Washington,  far  more  than 
to  any  other  single  circumstance,  is  due  the  ultimate 
success  of  the  American  Revolution,  though  in  purely 
intellectual  powers,  Washington  was  certainly  inferior 
to  Franklin,  and  perhaps  to  two  or  three  other  of  his 
colleagues.  There  is  a  theory  which  once  received  the 
countenance  of  some  considerable  physiologists,  though 
it  is  now,  I  believe,  completely  discarded,  that  one  of 
the  great  lines  of  division  among  men  may  be  traced  to 
the  comparative  development  of  the  cerebrum  and  the 
cerebellum.  To  the  first  organ  it  was  supposed  belong 
those  special  gifts  or  powers  which  make  men  poets, 
orators,  thinkers,  artists,  conquerors,  or  wits.  To  the 
second  belong  the  superintending,  restraining,  discern- 
ing, and  directing  faculties  which  enable  men  to  employ 

1  See  Adams'  Diary.     Works,  ii.  415. 


210    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,   en.  xi. 

their  several  talents  with  sanity  and  wisdom,  which 
maintain  the  balance  and  the  proportion  of  intellect  and 
character,  and  make  sound  judgments  and  well-regulated 
lives.  The  theory,  however  untrue  in  its  physiological 
aspect,  corresponds  to  a  real  distinction  in  human  minds 
and  characters,  and  it  was  especially  in  the  second  order 
of  faculties  that  Washington  excelled.  His  mind  was 
not  quick  or  remarkably  original.  His  conversation 
had  no  brilliancy  or  wit.  He  was  entirely  without  the 
gift  of  eloquence,  and  he  had  very  few  accomplishments. 
He  knew  no  language  but  his  own,  and  except  for  a 
rather  strong  turn  for  mathematics,  he  had  no  taste 
which  can  be  called  purely  intellectual.  There  was 
nothing  in  him  of  the  meteor  or  the  cataract,  nothing 
that  either  dazzled  or  overpowered.  A  courteous  and 
hospitable  country  gentleman,  a  skilful  farmer,  a  very 
keen  sportsman,  he  probably  differed  little  in  tastes  and 
habits  from  the  better  members  of  the  class  to  which  he 
belonged  ;  and  it  was  in  a  great  degree  in  the  administra- 
tion of  a  large  estate  and  in  assiduous  attention  to  county 
and  provincial  business  that  he  acquired  his  rare  skill  in 
reading  and  managing  men. 

As  a  soldier  the  circumstances  of  his  career  brought 
him  into  the  blaze,  not  only  of  domestic,  but  of  foreign 
criticism,  and  it  was  only  very  gradually  that  his  supe- 
riority was  fully  recognised.  Lee,  who  of  all  American 
soldiers  had  seen  most  service  in  the  English  army,  and 
Conway,  who  had  risen  to  great  repute  in  the  French 
army,  were  both  accustomed  to  speak  of  his  military 
talents  with  extreme  disparagement ;  but  personal  jea- 
lousy and  animosity  undoubtedly  coloured  their  judg- 
ments. Kalb,  who  had  been  trained  in  the  best  military 
schools  of  the  Continent,  at  first  pronounced  him  to  be 
very  deficient  in  the  strength,  decision,  and  promptitude 
of  a  general ;  and,  although  he  soon  learnt  to  form  the 
highest  estimate  of  his  military  capacity,  he  continued 


CH.  xi.  GEORGE  WASHINGTON.   '  211 

to  lament  that  an  excessive  modesty  led  him  too  fre- 
quently to  act  upon  the  opinion  of  inferior  men,  rather 
than  upon  his  own  most  excellent  judgment.1  In  the 
army  and  the  Congress  more  than  one  rival  was  opposed 
to  him.  He  had  his  full  share  of  disaster ;  the  operations 
which  he  conducted,  if  compared  with  great  European 
wars,  were  on  a  very  small  scale ;  and  he  had  the  im- 
mense advantage  of  encountering  in  most  cases  generals 
of  singular  incapacity.  It  may,  however,  be  truly  said 
of  him  that  his  military  reputation  steadily  rose  through 
many  successive  campaigns,  and  before  the  end  of  the 
struggle  he  had  outlived  all  rivalry,  and  almost  all  envy. 
He  had  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  technical  part  of 
his  profession,  a  good  eye  for  military  combinations,  an 
extraordinary  gift  of  military  administration.  Punctual, 
methodical,  and  exact  in  the  highest  degree,  he  excelled 
in  managing  those  minute  details  which  are  so  essential 
to  the  efficiency  of  an  army,  and  he  possessed  to  an 
eminent  degree  not  only  the  common  courage  of  a  soldier, 
but  also  that  much  rarer  form  of  courage  which  can 
endure  long-continued  suspense,  bear  the  weight  of 
great  responsibility,  and  encounter  the  risks  of  misre- 
presentation and  unpopularity.  For  several  years,  and 
usually  in  the  neighbourhood  of  superior  forces,  he  com- 
manded a  perpetually  fluctuating  army,  almost  wholly 
destitute  of  discipline  and  respect  for  authority,  torn 
by  the  most  violent  personal  and  provincial  jealousies, 
wretchedly  armed,  wretchedly  clothed,  and  sometimes 
in  imminent  danger  of  starvation.  Unsupported  for  the 
most  part  by  the  population  among  whom  he  was  quar- 
tered, and  incessantly  thwarted  by  the  jealousy  of  Con- 
gress, he  kept  his  army  together  by  a  combination  of 
skill,  firmness,  patience,  and  judgment  which  has  rarely 


1  See   Greene's   German  Element  in  the  American    War,    pp, 
142-144. 


212    ENGLAND 'IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  TO. 

been    surpassed,   and  he   led  it   at   last  to   a   signal 
triumph. 

In  civil  as  in  military  life,  he  was  pre-eminent 
among  his  contemporaries  for  the  clearness  and  sound- 
ness of  his  judgment,  for  his  perfect  moderation  and 
self-control,  for  the  quiet  dignity  and  the  indomitable 
firmness  with  which  he  pursued  every  path  which  he  had 
deliberately  chosen.  Of  all  the  great  men  in  history  he 
was  the  most  invariably  judicious,  and  there  is  scarcely 
a  rash  word  or  action  or  judgment  recorded  of  him. 
Those  who  knew  him  well,  noticed  that  he  had  keen 
sensibilities  and  strong  passions  ;  but  his  power  of  self- 
command  never  failed  him,  and  no  act  of  his  public  life 
can  be  traced  to  personal  caprice,  ambition,  or  resent- 
ment. In  the  despondency  of  long-continued  failure, 
in  the  elation  of  sudden  success,  at  times  when  his 
soldiers  were  deserting  by  hundreds  and  when  malig- 
nant plots  were  formed  against  his  reputation,  amid  the 
constant  quarrels,  rivalries,  and  jealousies  of  his  sub- 
ordinates, in  the  dark  hour  of  national  ingratitude,  and 
in  the  midst  of  the  most  universal  and  intoxicating 
flattery,  he  was  always  the  same  calm,  wise,  just,  and 
single-minded  man,  pursuing  the  course  which  he  be- 
lieved to  be  right,  without  fear  or  favour  or  fanaticism ; 
equally  free  from  the  passions  that  spring  from  interest, 
and  from  the  passions  that  spring  from  imagination. 
He  never  acted  on  the  impulse  of  an  absorbing  or  un- 
calculating  enthusiasm,  and  he  valued  very  highly  for- 
tune, position,  and  reputation  ;  but  at  the  command  of 
duty  he  was  ready  to  risk  and  sacrifice  them  all.  He 
was  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  words  a  gentleman  and 
a  man  of  honour,  and  he  carried  into  public  life  the 
severest  standard  of  private  morals.  It  was  at  first  the 
constant  dread  of  large  sections  of  the  American  people, 
that  if  the  old  Government  were  overthrown,  they  would 
fall  into  the  hands  of  military  adventurers,  and  undergo 


CH.  xi.  GEORGE  WASHINGTON.  213 

the  yoke  of  military  despotism.  It  was  mainly  the 
transparent  integrity  of  the  character  of  Washington 
that  dispelled  the  fear.  It  was  always  known  by  his 
friends,  and  it  was  soon  acknowledged  by  the  whole 
nation  and  by  the  English  themselves,  that  in  Washing- 
ton America  had  found  a  leader  who  could  be  induced 
by  no  earthly  motive  to  tell  a  falsehood,  or  to  break  an 
engagement,  or  to  commit  any  dishonourable  act.  Men 
of  this  moral  type  are  happily  not  rare,  and  we  have  all 
met  them  in  our  experience ;  but  there  is  scarcely 
another  instance  in  history  of  such  a  man  having  reached 
and  maintained  the  highest  position  in  the  convulsions 
of  civil  war  and  of  a  great  popular  agitation. 

It  is  one  of  the  great  advantages  of  the  long  practice 
of  free  institutions,  that  it  diffuses  through  the  com- 
munity a  knowledge  of  character  and  a  soundness  of 
judgment  which  save  it  from  the  enormous  mistakes 
that  are  almost  always  made  by  enslaved  nations  when 
suddenly  called  upon  to  choose  their  rulers.  No  fact 
shows  so  eminently  the  high  intelligence  of  the  men  who 
managed  the  American  Revolution  as  their  selection  of 
a  leader  whose  qualities  were  so  much  more  solid  than 
brilliant,  and  who  was  so  entirely  free  from  all  the  cha- 
racteristics of  a  demagogue.  It  was  only  slowly  and 
very  deliberately  that  Washington  identified  himself 
with  the  revolutionary  cause.  No  man  had  a  deeper 
admiration  for  the  British  Constitution,  or  a  more  sin- 
cere wish  to  preserve  the  connection  and  to  put  an  end 
to  the  disputes  between  the  two  countries.  In  Virginia 
the  revolutionary  movement  was  preceded  and  prepared 
by  a  democratic  movement  of  the  yeomanry  of  the  pro- 
vince, led  by  Patrick  Henry,  against  the  planter  aristo- 
cracy,1 and  Washington  was  a  conspicuous  member  of 
the  latter.  In  tastes,  manners,  instincts,  and  sym- 


See  Wirt's  Life  of  Patrick  Henry. 


214    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

pathies  lie  might  have  been  taken  as  an  admirable 
specimen  of  the  better  type  of  English  country  gentle- 
man, and  he  had  a  great  deal  of  the  strong  conservative 
feeling  which  is  natural  to  the  class.  From  the  first 
promulgation  of  the  Stamp  Act,  however,  he  adopted 
the  conviction  that  a  recognition  of  the  sole  right  of  the 
colonies  to  tax  themselves  was  essential  to  their  free- 
dom, and  as  soon  as  it  became  evident  that  Parliament 
was  resolved  afc  all  hazards  to  assert  and  exercise  its 
authority  of  taxing  America,  he  no  longer  hesitated. 
An  interesting  letter  to  his  wife,  however,  shows  clearly 
that  he  accepted  the  proffered  command  of  the  Ameri- 
can forces  with  extreme  diffidence  and  reluctance,  and 
solely  because  he  believed  that  it  was  impossible  for 
him  honourably  to  refuse  it.  He  declined  to  accept 
from  Congress  any  emoluments  for  his  service  beyond 
the  simple  payment  of  his  expenses,  of  which  he  was 
accustomed  to  draw  up  most  exact  and  methodical 
accounts. 

The  other  military  events  of  the  year  must  be  very 
briefly  related.  About  three  weeks  after  the  skirmish 
at  Lexington  a  party  of  colonists  under  Colonels  Allen 
and  Benedict  Arnold  had  succeeded,  without  the  loss  of 
a  man,  in  seizing  the  two  very  important  forts  of  Ticon- 
deroga  and  Crown  Point,  which  commanded  Lakes 
George  and  Champlain,  and  were  indeed  the  key  of 
Canada,  but  which  had  been  left  by  the  English  in  the 
charge  of  only  sixty  or  seventy  soldiers.  In  September, 
in  obedience  to  the  direction  of  the  Congress,  a  colonial 
army  invaded  Canada.  Washington  was  at  this  time 
organising  the  army  in  Massachusetts,  but  the  Canadian 
expedition  was  entrusted  to  the  joint  command  of 
Schuyler — who,  however,  was  soon  obliged  through 
ill-health  to  return  to  Ticonderoga — and  of  Mont- 
gomery, a  brave  and  skilful  Irish  soldier  from  Donegal, 
who  had  been  for  many  years  settled  in  the  colonies, 


CH.  xi.  INVASION  OF  CANADA,    1775.  215 

and  had  served  with  great  distinction  in  the  late  French 
war.  For  some  time  the  invasion  was  successful. 
Several  parties  of  Indians  joined  the  Provincials.1 
General  Carleton,  who  commanded  the  English  in 
Canada,  with  800  soldiers  was  driven  back  when  at- 
tempting to  cross  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  small  fort 
of  Charnblee  and  the  much  more  important  fort  of 
St.  John  were  taken.  Montreal  was  occupied  in  No- 
vember, and  in  the  beginning  of  December  Montgomery 
laid  siege  to  Quebec.  He  had  been  joined  just  before 
by  Benedict  Arnold,  who  had  been  sent  by  Washington 
at  the  head  of  an  expedition  to  assist  him,  but  their 
joint  efforts  were  unsuccessful.  The  Canadians  re- 
mained loyal  to  England.  Their  laws  and  their  re^ 
ligion  had  been  guaranteed.  They  had  enjoyed  under 
English  rule  much  prosperity  and  happiness.  The 
Catholic  priests  were  strongly  on  the  side  of  the  Eng- 
lish Government.2  The  contagion  of  New  England 
republicanism  had  not  penetrated  to  Canada,  and  the 
Canadians  had  no  sympathy  with  the  New  England 
character  or  the  New  England  creed.  They  were  es- 
pecially indignant,  too,  at  the  invasion,  because  on 
June  1, 17 75,  about  four  weeks  before  Congress  secretly 
decided  upon  this  step,  that  body  had  passed  a  resolu- 
tion disclaiming  any  such  intention,  and  had  caused  it 
to  be  widely  disseminated  through  Canada.3  Unsup- 
ported by  the  inhabitants,  in  the  midst  of  a  Canadian 
winter,  without  large  cannon  or  sufficient  ammunition, 
Montgomery  soon  found  his  position  a  hopeless  one. 
His  troops  deserted  in  such  numbers  that  only  800 
remained.4  They  were  turbulent,  insubordinate,  and 
half-trained  ;  and  they  had  enlisted  for  so  short  a  period 

1  Stedman,  i.  133.  Hist.  vi.  76,  and  Bancroft,  Hist. 

2  See  Adolphus,  ii.  239.  Earn-      of  the  United  States,  viii.  176, 
say,  i.  238.  177 

a  Compare    Lord    Stanhope's          4  Bancroft. 
10 


216    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 


and  were  so  unwilling  to  renew  their  contract  that  it 
was  necessary  to  press  on  operations  as  quickly  as  pos- 
sible.1 He  fell  on  the  last  day  of  1775  in  a  desperate 
but  unsuccessful  attempt  to  storm  Quebec,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  following  year  the  Americans  evacuated 
Canada. 

In  most  parts  of  the  colonies  the  British  govern- 
ment simply  perished  through  the  absence  of  British 
soldiers,  but  in  Virginia  Lord  Dunmore,  the  Governor 
of  the  province,  made  desperate  efforts  to  retain  it. 


1  '  TheNewEnglanders,'  wrote 
Montgomery,  '  are  the  worst  stuff 
imaginable  for  soldiers.  They 
are  homesick.  Their  regiments 
are  melted  away,  and  yet  not  a 
man  dead  of  any  distemper. 
There  is  such  an  equality 
among  them  that  the  officers 
have  no  authority,  and  there 
are  very  few  among  them  in 
whose  spirit  I  have  confidence. 
The  privates  are  all  generals, 
but  not  soldiers,  and  so  jealous 
that  it  is  impossible,  though  a 
man  risk  his  person,  to  escape 
the  imputation  of  treachery.' — 
Bancroft,  Hist,  of  the  United 
States,  viii.  185.  The  day  after 
the  capitulation  of  Montreal, 
Montgomery  wrote  to  General 
Schuyler :  « I  am  exceedingly 
sorry  that  Congress  has  not 
favoured  me  with  a  committee  ; 
it  would  have  had  great  effect 
with  the  troops,  who  are  exceed- 
ingly turbulent,  and  even  mutin- 
ous. ...  I  wish  some  method 
could  be  fallen  upon  of  engaging 
gentlemen  to  serve.  A  point  of 
honour  and  more  knowledge  of 
the  world  to  be  found  in  that 
class  of  men  would  greatly  re- 
form discipline,  and  render  the 


troops  much  more  tractable.' — • 
Washington's  Works,  iii.  180, 
181.  Washington  writes  (Jan. 
31,  1776):  'The  account  given 
of  the  behaviour  of  the  men 
under  General  Montgomery  ia 
exactly  consonant  to  the  opinion 
I  have  formed  of  these  people, 
and  such  as  they  will  exhibit 
abundant  proofs  of  in  similar 
cases  whenever  called  upon. 
Place  them  behind  a  parapet, 
a  breastwork,  stone  wall,  or  any- 
thing that  will  afford  them 
shelter,  and  from  their  know- 
ledge of  a  firelock  they  will  give 
a  good  account  of  the  enemy ; 
but  I  am  as  well  convinced  as  if 
I  had  seen  it,  that  they  will  not 
march  boldly  up  to  a  work,  nor 
stand  exposed  in  a  plain.' — Ibid. 
p.  277.  See,  too,  p.  285.  The 
failure  and  death  of  Montgomery, 
Washington  ascribed  to  the  sys- 
tem of  short  enlistments,  'for 
had  he  not  been  apprehensive 
of  the  troops  leaving  him  at  so 
important  a  crisis,  but  continued 
the  blockade  of  Quebec,  a  capi- 
tulation, from  the  best  accounts 
I  have  been  able  to  collect,  must 
inevitably  have  followed.' — Ibid. 
p.  27b. 


CH.  xi.  FIGHTING  IN  VIRGINIA.  217 

Having  removed  a  store  of  gunpowder  from  Williams- 
burg,  in  order  to  secure  it  from  the  Provincials,  lie  was 
obliged  to  %  from  the  palace  to  a  British  man-of-war. 
There  were  no  English  soldiers  in  the  province,  but 
with  the  assistance  of  some  British  frigates,  of  some 
hundreds  of  loyalists  who  followed  his  fortunes,  and  of  a 
few  runaway  negroes,  he  equipped  a  marine  force  which 
spread  terror  along  the  Virginian  coast,  and  kept  up  a 
harassing,  though  almost  useless,  predatory  war.  Two 
incidents  in  the  struggle  excited  deep  resentment 
throughout  America.  The  first  was  a  proclamation  by 
which  freedom  was  promised  to  all  slaves  who  took 
arms  against  the  rebels.  The  second  was  the  burning 
of  the  important  town  of  Norfolk,  which  had  been 
occupied  by  the  Provincials,  had  fired  on  the  King's 
ships,  and  had  refused  to  supply  them  with  provisions. 
It  was  impossible,  however,  by  such  means  to  subdue 
the  province.  An  attempt  to  raise  a  loyalist  force  in 
the  back  settlements  of  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  was 
defeated  by  the  arrest  of  its  chief  instigators  in  the 
summer  of  1776,  and  soon  after,  Dunmore,  being  no 
longer  able  to  obtain  provisions  for  his  ships,  aban- 
doned the  colony.  The  unhappy  negroes  who  had 
taken  part  with  the  loyalists  are  said  to  have  almost 
universally  perished.1 

In  the  Southern  provinces,  and  especially  in  the 
two  Carolinas  and  in  Georgia,  there  was  a  considerable 
loyalist  party,  but  it  was  unsupported  by  any  regular 
troops,  and  after  a  few  spasmodic  struggles  it  was 
easily  crushed.  Most  of  the  governors  took  refuge  in 
English  men-of-war;  a  few  were  arrested  and  im- 
prisoned. Provincial  Congresses  assumed  the  direction 
of  affairs ;  except  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of 
British  soldiers  the  power  o^f  England  had  ceased,  and 

1  Stedman.    Bancroft.    Kamsay,  i.  252. 


218    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,   en.  xi. 

there  was  no  force  in  America  competent  to  restore  it. 
In  the  chief  towns  the  stir  of  military  preparation  was 
incessant.  When  Franklin  attended  the  Congress  at 
Philadelphia  in  the  September  of  1775,  he  found  com- 
panies of  provincial  soldiers  drilled  twice  a  day  in  the 
square  of  the  Quaker  capital,  and  the  fortifications 
along  the  Delaware  were  rapidly  advancing.  Six 
powder  mills  were  already  designed,  and  two  were  just 
about  to  open.  A  manufactory  of  muskets  had  been 
established  which  was  expected  to  complete  twenty-five 
muskets  a  day.  Suspected  persons  were  constantly 
arrested,  and  the  letter-bags  systematically  examined. 
Tories  were  either  tarred  and  feathered  or  compelled  to 
mount  a  cart  and  ask  pardon  of  the  crowd,  and  the 
ladies  of  the  town  were  busily  employed  in  scraping 
lint  or  making  bandages  for  the  wounded.1 

Over  the  inland  districts  the  revolutionary  party 
was  as  yet  supreme,  but  the  whole  coast  was  exposed, 
almost  without  defence,  to  the  attacks  of  English  ships 
of  war,  and  all  the  chief  towns  in  America  were  sea- 
port. The  Americans  possessed  a  large  population  of 
seafaring  men  who  were  eminently  fitted  for  maritime 
warfare,  but  they  had  as  yet  not  a  single  ship  of  war. 
The  Government  made  large  offers  to  gunsmiths  to  in- 
duce them  to  abandon  America  for  England.2  The 
manufacture  of  gunpowder  was  only  slowly  organised, 
and  for  many  months  the  colonial  forces  were  often  in 
extreme  danger  in  consequence  of  the  scantiness  of 
their  supply.  It  was  wisely  determined  to  pay  the 
provincial  troops  and  to  pay  them  well ;  but  as  all 
foreign  commerce  was  arrested,  and  as  most  forms  of 
industry  were  dislocated,  there  was  very  little  money 


1  Parton's  Life  of  Franklin,      Tryon,    Documents   relating    to 
ii.  100.  the    Colonial    History    of  New 

2  See   a    letter   of    Governor      York,  viii.  647. 


CH.  xi.  NEGROES  AND  INDIANS.  219 

in  the  country,  and  paper  was  speedily  depreciated. 
Some  of  the  necessaries  of  life  had  hitherto  been  im- 
ported from  England,  and  the  great  want  of  native 
woollen  goods  was  especially  felt  in  the  rigour  of  the 
first  winter  of  the  war. 

Though  the  negroes,  who  were  so  numerous  in  the 
Southern  States,  were  a  cause  of  great  anxiety  to  the 
colonists,1  they  remained  at  this  time,  with  few  excep- 
tions, perfectly  passive  ;  but  one  of  the  first  conse- 
quences of  the  appeal  to  arms  was  to  bring  Indian 
tribes  into  the  field.  In  the  great  French  war  they 
had  been  constantly  employed  by  the  French  and  fre- 
quently by  the  English,  and  it  was  not  likely  that  so 
formidable  a  weapon  would  be  long  unused.  Neither 
side,  it  is  true,  desired  a  general  Indian  rising.  Neither 
si$e  can  be  justly  accused  of  the  great  crime  of  inciting 
the  Indians  to  indiscriminate  massacre  or  plunder,  but 
both  sides  were  ready  to  employ  them  as  auxiliaries. 
Before  the  battle  of  Lexington  the  Provincial  Congress 
of  Massachusetts  formed  a  company  out  of  Stockbridge 
Indians  residing  in  the  colony.2  In  the  beginning  of 
April  1775  they  issued  an  address  to  the  Mohawk 
Indians  exhorting  them  '  to  whet  the  hatchet '  for  war 
against  the  English,3  and  Indians  were,  as  we  have 
seen,  employed  by  the  Provincials  in  their  invasion  of 


1  Thus  J.  Adams  in  1775  gives  join  it  from  the  two  provinces 
an  account  of  an  interview  with  in  a  fortnight.  .  .  .  Their  only 
some  gentlemen  from  Georgia.  security  is  that  all  the  King's 
•  These  gentlemen  give  a  melan-  friends  and  tools  of  Government 
choly  account  of  the  State  of  have  large  plantations  and  pro- 
Georgia  and  South  Carolina.  perty  in  negroes,  so  that  the 
They  say  that  if  1,000  regular  slaves  of  the  Tories  would  be 
troops  should  land  in  Georgia,  lost  as  well  as  those  of  the 
and  their  commander  be  pro-  Whigs.' — Adams'  Works,  ii.  428. 
vided  with  arms  and  clothes  2  Washington's  Works,  ni.  175. 
enough,  and  proclaim  freedom  •  *  Force's  American  Archives 
to  all  the  negroes  who  would  join  (4th  series),  L  1349,  1350. 
bis  camp,  20,000  negroes  would 


220    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   en.  xi, 

Canada.  In  March  1775  Mr.  Stuart,  who  managed 
Indian  affairs  for  the  English  Government  in  the 
Southern  colonies,  reported  that  General  Gage  had  in- 
formed him  *  that  ill-affected  people  in  those  parts  had 
been  endeavouring  to  poison  the  minds  of  the  Indians 
of  the  six  nations  and  other  tribes  with  jealousies,  in 
order  to  alienate  their  affection  from  his  Majesty,' 1  and 
New  England  missionaries  appear  to  have  been  in  this 
respect  especially  active.2  Up  to  the  middle  of  this 
year  the  English  professed  great  reluctance  to  make 
use  of  savages.  In  July,  Stuart  wrote  very  emphatic- 
ally to  the  Revolutionary  Committee  of  Intelligence  at 
Charleston,  which  had  expressed  suspicions  on  this  sub- 
ject :  *  I  never  have  received  any  orders  from  my  supe- 
riors which  by  the  most  tortured  construction  could  be 
interpreted  to  spirit  up  or  employ  the  Indians  to  fall 
upon  the  frontier  inhabitants,  or  to  take  any  part  in 
the  disputes  between  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies,'  3 
and  both  English  and  colonists  exhorted  the  Indians  as 
a  body  to  remain  neutral.4  It  is,  however,  certain  that 

1  March 28, 1775.  MSS.Kecord  concern  you,  they  will  decide  it 

Office  (Plantations,  General).  among  themselves.' — MSS.  Ee- 

3  Documents  relating  to  the  cord  Office  (Plantations,  General). 

Colonial  History  of  New  York,  In  August  1775  the  commis- 

viii.  656,  657.  See,  too,  a  letter  sioners  sent  by  the  twelve  colo- 

of  the  Provincial  Congress,  dated  nies  had  a  long  interview  with 

April  4,  1775,  to  a  New  England  the  chiefs  of  the  six  nations,  and 

missionary,  urging  him  to  use  gave  them  an  elaborate  account 

his  influence  to  make  the  Indians  of  the  motives  which  had  united 

take  up  arms  against  the  Eng-  them  against  England.  They 

lish.  Washington's  Works,  iii.  added,  however:  *  This  is  a  family 

495.  quarrel  between  us  and  Old  Eng- 

3  July  18, 1775.  MSS.  Record  land.  You  Indians  are  not  con- 
Office,  cerned  in  it.  We  do  not  wish 

*  In  a  speech  to  the  Indians,  you  to  take  up  the  hatchet  against 

August  30,  1775,  Stuart  said:  the  King's  troops.  We  desire 

'  There  is  a  difference  between  you  to  remain  at  home  and  not 

the  white  people  of  England  and  join  either  side,  but  keep  the 

the  white  people  of  America  ;  hatchet  buried  deep.' — Docu- 

this  is  a  matter  which  does  not  nients  relating  to  tlte  Colonial 


ca.  xi. 


INDIANS  CALLED   TO  ARMS. 


221 


in  the  beginning  of  June  1775  Colonel  Guy  Johnson, 
who  had  succeeded  Sir  William  Johnson  in  the  direc- 
tion of  one  great  department  of  Indian  affairs,  had,  in 
obedience  to  secret  instructions  from  General  Gage,  in- 
duced a  large  body  of  Indians  to  undertake  *  to  assist 
his  Majesty's  troops  in  their  operations  in  Canada,' l 
and  in  July  this  policy  was  openly  avowed  by  Lord 
Dartmouth.  It  was  defended  on  the  ground  that  the 
Americans  had  themselves  adopted  it.2 

Few  things  were  more  terrible  to  the  Americans 


History  of  New  York,  viii.  619. 
See,  too,  the  Secret  Journals  of 
Congress,  July  17,  1775. 

1  Documents    relating   to   the 
Colonial  History  of  New  York, 
viii.  636.     See  Secret  Journals  of 
Congress,  June  27,  1775. 

2  July  24,  1775,  Lord  Dart- 
mouth wrote  to  Colonel  Johnson : 
'  The  unnatural  rebellion    now 
raging  in  America  calls  for  every 
effort  to  suppress  it,  and  the  in- 
teDigence  his   Majesty  has  re- 
ceived of  the  rebels  having  ex- 
cited the  Indians  to  take  a  part, 
and  of  their  having  actually  en- 
gaged a  body  of  them  in  arms  to 
support  their  rebellion,  justifies 
the  resolution  his   Majesty  has 
taken  of  requiring  the  assistance 
of  his  faithful  adherents  the  six 
nations.      It    is,  therefore,  his 
Majesty's  pleasure  that  you  lose 
no  time  in  taking  such  steps  as 
may  induce  them  to  take  up  the 
hatchet  against  his  Majesty's  re- 
bellious  subjects.'  —  Documents 
on  the  Colonial  History  of  New 
York,  viii.  596.      General  Gage 
wrote  to  Stuart  (September  12, 
1775)  telling  him  to  hold  a  cor- 
respondence  with   the    Indians, 
1  to  make  them  take  arms  against 


his  Majesty's  enemies,  and  to 
distress  them  all  in  their  power, 
for  no  terms  are  now  to  be 
kept  with  them.'  '  The  rebels,' 
he  continues,  'have  themselves 
opened  the  door.  They  have 
brought  down  all  the  savages 
they  could  against  us  here,  who 
with  their  riflemen  are  continu- 
ally firing  on  our  advanced  sen- 
tries.'—MSS.  Eecord  Office.  On 
October  24,  1775,  Stuart  sent 
ammunition  to  the  savages  ac- 
cording to  instructions,  adding : 
'  You  will  understand  that  an 
indiscriminate  attack  upon  the 
province  is  not  meant,  but  to 
act  in  the  execution  of  any  con- 
certed plan,  and  to  assist  his 
Majesty's  troops  or  friends  in 
distressing  the  rebels.' — Ibid. 
On  November  20,  1775,  Lord 
North  said  in  Parliament :  *  As 
to  the  means  of  conducting  the 
war,  he  declared  there  was  never 
any  idea  of  employing  the  negroes 
or  the  Indians  until  the  Ameri- 
cans themselves  had  first  applied 
to  them ;  that  General  Carleton 
did  then  apply  to  them,  and  that 
even  then  it  was  only  for  the  de- 
fence of  his  own  province.' — 
Parl.  Hist,  xviii.  994. 


222    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  Xi 

than  the  scourge  of  Indian  war.  As  'it  had  generally 
been  the  function  of  the  Government  to  protect  the 
savages  against  the  rapacity  and  violence  of  the  colonists, 
England  could  count  largely  upon  their  gratitude,  and 
the  horrors  which  never  failed  to  multiply  in  their  track 
gave  a  darker  hue  of  animosity  to  the  struggle. 

But  the  greatest  danger  to  the  colonial  cause  was 
the  half-heartedness  of  its  supporters.  It  is  difficult  or 
impossible  to  form  any  safe  conjecture  of  the  number  of 
real  loyalists  in  America,  but  it  is  certain  that  it  was 
very  considerable.  John  Adams,  who  would  naturally 
be  inclined  to  overrate  the  preponderance  in  favour  of 
independence,  declared  at  the  end  of  the  war  his  belief 
that  a  third  part  of  the  whole  population,  more  than  a 
third  part  of  the  principal  persons  in  America,  were 
throughout  opposed  to  the  Revolution.1  Massachusetts 
was  of  all  the  provinces  the  most  revolutionary,  but  when 
General  Gage  evacuated  Boston  in  1776  he  was  accom- 
panied by  more  than  1,000  loyalists  of  that  town  and  of 
the  neighbouring  country.  Two-thirds  of  the  property 
of  New  York  was  supposed  to  belong  to  Tories,  and 
except  in  the  city  there  appears  to  have  been  no  serious 
disaffection.2  In  some  of  the  Southern  colonies  loyalists 
probably  formed  half  the  population,  and  there  was  no 
colony  in  which  they  were  not  largely  represented. 

There  were  also  great  multitudes  who,  though  they 
would  never  take  up  arms  for  the  King,  though  they 
perhaps  agreed  with  the  constitutional  doctrines  of 
the  Revolutionists,  dissented  on  grounds  of  principle, 
policy,  or  interest  from  the  course  which  they  were 
adopting.  There  were  those  who  wished  to  wait  till 

1  Adams'  Works,  x.  87.  Many  2  Parl.  Hist,    xviii.  123-129. 

particulars  about  the  strength  of  Sparks'   Life    of     Washington. 

the  loyalist  party  will  be  found  Force's  American  Archives  (4th 

in  Mr.  Sabine's  very  interesting  series),  i.  773,  957. 
book,  The  Loyalists  of  America. 


en.  xi.  FOREBODINGS  IN  AMERICA.  223 

the  natural  increase  of  the  colonies  made  coercion  mani- 
festly impossible;  who  feared  to  stake  acknowledged 
liberties  on -the  doubtful  issue  of  an  armed  struggle; 
who  shrank  from  measures  that  would  destroy  their 
private  fortunes;  who  determined  to  stand  aloof  till 
the  event  showed  which  side  was  likely  to  win;  who 
still  dreamed  of  the  possibility  of  resisting  the  Par- 
liament without  casting  off  allegiance  to  the  Crown. 
If  America  succeeded  in  throwing  off  the  yoke  of 
England,  it  could  hardly  be  without  the  assistance 
of  France,  and  many  feared  that  France  would  thus 
acquire  a  power  on  the  Continent  far  more  dangerous 
than  that  of  England  to  the  liberties  of  the  colonies. 
Was  it  not  likely,  too,  that  an  independent  America 
would  degenerate,  as  so  many  of  the  best  judges  had 
predicted,  into  a  multitude  of  petty,  heterogeneous, 
feeble,  and  perhaps  hostile  States  ?  Was  it  not  certain 
that  the  cost  of  the  struggle  and  the  burden  of  inde- 
pendence would  drain  its  purse  of  far  more  money  than 
England  was  ever  likely  to  ask  for  the  defence  of  her 
Empire  ?  Was  it  not  possible  that  the  lawless  and 
anarchical  spirit  which  had  of  late  years  been  steadily 
growing,  and  which  the  patriotic  party  had  actively 
encouraged,  would  gain  the  upper  hand,  and  that  the 
whole  fabric  of  society  would  be  dissolved  ?  John 
Adams  in  his  Diary  relates  the  *  profound  melancholy ' 
which  fell  upon  him  in  one  of  the  most  critical  moments 
of  the  struggle,  when  a  man  whom  he  knew  to  be  a 
horse-jockey  and  a  cheat,  and  whom,  as  an  advocate,  he 
had  often  defended  in  the  law  courts,  came  to  him  and 
expressed  the  unbounded  gratitude  which  he  felt  for  the 
great  things  which  Adams  and  his  colleagues  had  done. 
'  We  can  never/  he  said,  *  be  grateful  enough  to  you. 
There  are  now  no  courts  of  justice  in  this  province,  and 
I  hope  there  will  never  be  another/  *  Is  this  the  object/ 
Adams  continued,  *  for  which  I  have  been  contending  ? ' 


224    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.   CK.  «, 

said  I  to  myself.  .  .  .  Are  these  the  sentiments  of  such 
people,  and  how  many  of  them  are  there  in  the  country  ? 
Half  the  nation,  for  what  I  know ;  for  half  the  nation 
are  debtors,  if  not  more,  and  these  have  been  in  all 
countries  the  sentiments  of  debtors.  If  the  power  of 
the  country  should  get  into  such  hands — and  there  is 
great  danger  that  it  will — to  what  purpose  have  we 
sacrificed  our  time,  health,  and  everything  else  ?  ' l 

Misgivings  of  this  kind  must  have  passed  through 
many  minds,  and  the  older  colonists  were  not  of  the  stuff 
of  which  ardent  soldiers  are  made.  Among  the  poor, 
vagrant,  adventurous  immigrants  who  had  lately  poured 
in  by  thousands  from  Ireland  and  Scotland,  there  was 
indeed  a  keen  military  spirit,  and  it  was  these  men  who 
ultimately  bore  the  chief  part  in  the  war  of  indepen- 
dence ;  but  the  older  and  more  settled  colonists  were 
men  of  a  very  different  type.  Shrewd,  prosperous,  and 
well-educated  farmers,  industrious,  money-loving,  and 
eminently  domestic,  they  were  men  who,  if  they  were 
compelled  to  fight,  would  do  so  with  courage  and  intel- 
ligence, but  who  cared  little  or  nothing  for  military 
glory,  and  grudged  every  hour  that  separated  them  from 
their  families  and  their  farms.  Such  men  were  dragged 
very  reluctantly  into  the  struggle.  The  American 
Kevolution,  like  most  others,  was  the  work  of  an  ener- 
getic minority,  who  succeeded  in  committing  an  unde- 
cided and  fluctuating  majority  to  courses  for  which  they 
had  little  love,  and  leading  them  step  by  step  to  a  posi- 
tion from  which  it  was  impossible  to  recede.2  To  the 

1  Adams'  Works,  ii.  420.  June  16,  1779.    As  a  loyalist,  his 

2  One  of  the  most  remarkable  mind  was  no  doubt  biassed,  but 
documents  relating  to  the  state  he  was  a  very  able  and  honest 
of  opinion  in  America  is  the  ex-  man,  and  he  had  much  more  than 
animation     of    Galloway    (late  common  means  of  forming  a  cor- 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Assem-  rect  judgment.    He  says  :  '  I  do 
bly  in  Pennsylvania)  by  a  Com-  not  believe,  from  the  best  know- 
mittee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  ledge  I  have  of  that  time  [the 


en.  xi. 


GENERAL  APATHY. 


225 


last,  however,  we  find  vacillation,  uncertainty,  half- 
measures,  and  in  large  classes  a  great  apparent  apathy. 
In  June  1775,  the  Provincial  Congress  of  New  York 
received  two  startling  pieces  of  intelligence,  that  Wash- 
ington was  about  to  pass  through  their  city  on  his  way 
to  Cambridge,  and  that  Tryon,  the  royal  governor,  had 
just  arrived  in  the  harbour.  The  Congress,  though  it 
was  an  essentially  Whig  body,  and  had  assumed  an 
attitude  which  was  virtually  rebellion,  still  dreaded  the 
necessity  of  declaring  itself  irrevocably  on  either  side, 
and  it  ultimately  ordered  the  colonel  of  militia  to  dis- 


beginning  of  the  rebellion],  that 
one-fifth  of  the  people  had  inde- 
pendence in  view.  .  .  .  Many  of 
those  who  have  appeared  in  sup- 
port of  the  present  rebellion  have 
by  a  variety  of  means  been  com- 
pelled. ...  I  think  I  may  ven- 
ture to  say  that  many  more  than 
four-fifths  of  the  people  would 
prefer  an  union  with  Great 
Britain  upon  constitutional  prin- 
ciples to  that  of  independence.1 
Galloway  was  asked  the  following 
question  :  '  That  part  of  the  rebel 
army  that  enlisted  in  the  service 
of  the  Congress  —  were  they 
chiefly  composed  of  natives  of 
America,  or  were  the  greatest 
part  of  them  English,  Scotch, 
and  Irish  ?  '  Galloway  answered  : 
'  The  names  and  places  of  their 
nativity  being  taken  down,  I  can 
answer  the  question  with  pre- 
cision. There  were  scarcely  one- 
fourth  natives  of  America — about 
one-half  Irish — the  other  fourth 
were  English  and  Scotch.'  This 
last  answer,  however,  must  be 
qualified  by  a  subsequent  answer, 
that  he  judged  of  the  country  of 
the  troops  by  the  deserters  who 


came  over,  to  the  number  of  be- 
tween 2,000  and  3,000,  at  the 
time  when  Galloway  was  with 
Sir  W.  Howe  at  Philadelphia.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war  the  proportion  of 
pure  Americans  in  the  army  was 
much  larger,  as  it  was  chiefly  re- 
cruited in  New  England,  where 
the  population  was  most  un- 
mixed. It  is  stated  that  more 
than  a  fourth  part  of  the  conti- 
nental soldiers  employed  during 
the  war  were  from  Massachusetts. 
See  Greene's  Historical  View  of 
the  American  Revolution,  p.  235. 
Galloway's  very  remarkable  evi- 
dence was  reprinted  at  Philadel- 
phia in  1855.  In  his  Letters  to 
a  Nobleman  on  the  Conduct  of 
tJie  War,  Galloway  reiterates  his 
assertion  that  'three-fourths  of 
the  rebel  army  have  been  gener- 
ally composed  of  English,  Scotch, 
and  Irish,  while  scarcely  the 
small  proportion  of  one-fourth 
are  American,  notwithstanding 
the  severe  and  arbitrary  laws  to 
force  them  into  the  service.1— 
P.  25. 


226        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.      en.  xi, 

pose  of  his  troops  so  as  to  receive  '  either  the  General 
or  Governor  Tryon,  whichever  should  first  arrive,  and 
wait  on  both  as  well  as  circumstances  would  admit.' l 
The  dominant  Quaker  party  of  Pennsylvania  was  at  least 
as  hostile  to  rebellion  as  to  imperial  taxation,  and  Chas- 
tellux  justified  the  very  democratic  institutions  which 
Franklin  established  in  that  province  when  the  Revolu- 
tion had  begun,  on  the  ground  that  '  it  was  necessary  to 
employ  a  sort  of  seduction  in  order  to  conduct  a  timid 
and  avaricious  people  to  independence,  who  were  besides 
so  divided  in  their  opinions  that  the  Republican  party 
was  scarcely  stronger  than  the  other.' 2  In  every 
Southern  colony  a  similar  division  and  a  similar  hesita- 
tion may  be  detected. 

The  result  of  all  this  was,  that  there  was  much  less 
genuine  military  enthusiasm  than  might  have  been  ex- 
pected. When  Washington  arrived  at  Cambridge  to 
command  the  army,  he  found  that  it  nominally  con- 
sisted of  about  17,000  men,  but  that  not  more  than 
14,500  were  actually  available  for  service,  and  they  had 
to  guard  a  line  extending  for  nearly  twelve  miles,  in 
face  of  a  force  of  at  least  9,000  regular  troops,  besides 
seamen  and  loyalists.  Urgent  demands  were  made  to 
the  different  colonies  to  send  recruits,  but  they  were 
very  imperfectly  responded  to.  Colonel  Lee,  in  a  re- 
markable letter  on  the  military  prospects  of  the  Ame- 
ricans, estimated  that  in  three  or  four  months  the 
colonists  could  easily  have  an  efficient  army  of  100,000 
infantry.3  As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  month's  recruiting 
during  this  most  critical  period  produced  only  5,000 
men.  There  was  abundant  courage  and  energy  among 
the  soldiers,  but  there  was  very  little  subordination, 


1  See  a  cnrious  note  in  Wash-      America,  Eng.  trans,  i.  332. 
ington's  Works,  iii.  8.  3  American      Remembrancer, 

8  Chastellux,  Travels  in  North      177G,  part  i.  p.  25. 


CH.  xi.  DEFECTS   OF   THE   AMERICAN  ARMY.  227 

discipline,  or  self-sacrifice.  Each  body  of  troops  had 
been  raised  by  the  laws  of  its  own  colony,  and  it  was 
reluctant  to  obey  any  other  authority.  Washington 
complained  bitterly  of  '  the  egregious  want  of  public 
spirit '  in  his  army.  The  Congress  had  made  rules  for 
its  regulation.  The  troops  positively  refused  to  accept 
them,  as  they  had  not  enlisted  on  those  terms,  and 
Washington  was  obliged  to  yield,  except  in  the  case  of 
new  recruits.  The  Congress  had  appointed  a  number  of 
officers,  but  the  troops  rebelled  violently  against  their 
choice,  and  it  soon  became  evident  that  they  would 
only  remain  at  their  post  as  long  as  they  served  under 
such  officers  as  they  pleased.1  The  absence  of  any 
social  difference  between  officers  and  soldiers  greatly 
aggravated  the  difficulty  of  enforcing  discipline.2  The 
local  feeling  was  so  strong  that  General  Schuyler  gave 
it  as  his  deliberate  opinion  that  '  troops  from  the  colony 
of  Connecticut  will  not  bear  with  a  general  from 
another  colony.'3  The  short  period  for  which  the 
troops  had  consented  to  enlist  made  it  impossible  to 
give  them  steadiness  or  discipline,  to  count  upon  the 
future,  or  to  engage  in  enterprises  of  magnitude  or 
continuity.  What  little  subordination  had  been  attained 
in  the  beginning  of  the  period  was  destroyed  at  the 
close,  for  the  officers  were  obliged  to  connive  at  every 
kind  of  relaxation  of  discipline  in  order  to  persuade 
their  soldiers  to  re-enlist.4  Personal  recriminations 
and  jealousies,  quarrels  about  rank  and  pay  and  ser- 
vice, were  incessant.  Great  numbers  held  aloof  from 
enlisting,  imagining  that  the  distress  of  their  cause 
would  oblige  the  Congress  to  offer  large  bounties ; 5  no 
possible  inducement  could  persuade  a  large  proportion 
of  the  soldiers  to  re-enlist  when  their  short  time  of  ser- 


1  Washington's     Works,     iii.          •  Ibid.  p.  243  ;  see,  too,  p.  151. 
176.  «  Ibid.  p.  280.' 

*  Ibid.  p.  279.  •  Ibid.  pp.  200,  201,  281. 


228    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  si. 

vice  had  expired,  and  there  were  instances  of  gross 
selfishness  and  misconduct  among  the  disbanding 
soldiers.1  The  term  for  which  the  Connecticut  troops 
had  enlisted  expired  in  December,  and  the  whole  body, 
amounting  to  some  5,000  men,  positively  refused  to 
re-enlist.  It  was  vainly  represented  to  them  that  their 
desertion  threatened  to  bring  absolute  ruin  on  the 
American  cause.  The  utmost  that  the  most  strenuous 
exertions  could  effect  was,  that  they  would  delay  their 
departure  for  ten  days.  There  were  bitter  complaints 
that  Congress  granted  no  bounties,  leaving  this  to  the 
option  of  the  several  colonies,  and  also  that  the  scale  of 
pay,  though  very  liberal,  was  lower  than  what  they 
might  have  obtained  in  other  employments.  Great 
numbers  pretended  sickness,  in  order  to  escape  from 
the  service  ; 2  great  numbers  would  only  continue  in 
the  army  on  the  condition  of  obtaining  long  furloughs 
at  a  time  when  every  man  was  needed  for  the  security 
of  the  lines.3  There  was  a  constant  fear  of  concentrat- 
ing too  much  power  in  military  hands,  and  of  building 

1  Washington's     Works,     iii.       ...   Such   a  mercenary  spirit 
240,  280.  pervades  the  whole  that  I  should 

2  Ibid.  p.  191.  not  be  at  all  surprised  at  any 
8  Washington's  letters  are  full      disaster  that  may  happen.  .  .  . 

of  complaints  on  the  subject.  I  Could  I  have  foreseen  what  I  have 
will  quote  a  few  lines  from  a  experienced,  and  am  likely  to  ex- 
letter  of  Nov.  28,  1775.  '  Such  perience,  no  consideration  upon 
a  dearth  of  public  spirit,  and  earth  should  have  induced  me  to 
such  want  of  virtue,  such  stock-  accept  this  command.'  (Wash- 
jobbing  and  fertility  in  all  the  ington's  Works,  iii.  178,  179.) 
low  arts  to  obtain  advantages  *  No  troops,'  he  writes  in  another 
of  one  kind  or  another  in  this  letter, '  were  ever  better  provided 
great  change  of  military  arrange-  or  higher  paid,  yet  their  back- 
ment,  I  never  saw  before,  and  wardness  to  enlist  for  another 
pray  God's  mercy  that  I  may  year  is  amazing.  It  grieves  me 
never  be  witness  to  again.  ...  to  see  so  little  of  that  patriotic 
I  have  been  obliged  to  allow  fur-  spirit  which  I  was  taught  to  be- 
loughs  as  far  as  fifty  men  to  a  lieve  was  characteristic  of  thig 
regiment,  and  the  officers,  I  am  people.'  (Ibid.  p.  181.)  *The 
persuaded,  indulge  as  many  more.  present  soldiery  are  in  expecta- 


en.  xi.  WANT  OF  EARNESTNESS.  229 

up  a  system  of  despotism,  and  there  was  a  general 
belief  among  the  soldiers  that  unquestioning  obedience 
to  their  officers  was  derogatory  to  their  dignity  and 
inconsistent  with  their  freedom. 

The  truth  is,  that  although  the  circumstances  of  the 
New  Englanders  had  developed  to  a  high  degree  many 
of  the  qualities  that  are  essential  to  a  soldier,  they 
had  been  very  unfavourable  to  others.  To  obey,  to  act 
together,  to  sacrifice  private  judgment  to  any  authority, 
to  acknowledge  any  superior,  was  wholly  alien  to  their 
temperament,1  and  they  had  nothing  of  that  passionate 
and  all-absorbing  enthusiasm  which  transforms  the 
character,  and  raises  men  to  an  heroic  height  of  patriotic 
self-devotion.  Such  a  spirit  is  never  evoked  by  mere 
money  disputes.  The  question  whether  the  Supreme 
Legislature  of  the  Empire  had  or  had  not  the  right  of 
obliging  the  colonies  to  contribute  something  to  the 
support  of  the  imperial  army,  was  well  fitted  to  produce 
constitutional  agitation,  eloquence,  riots,  and  even  or- 
ganised armed  resistance ;  but  it  was  not  one  of  those 
questions  which  touch  the  deeper  springs  of  human 
feeling  or  action.  Any  nation  might  be  proud  of  the 


tion  of  drawing  from  the  landed  same  time  to  prevent  the  opera- 
interest  and  farmers  a  bounty  tion  of  licentious  and  levelling 
equal  to  that  given  at  the  com-  principles,  which  many  very 
mencement  of  this  army,  and  easily  imbibe.  The  pulse  of  a 
therefore  they  keep  aloof.'  Ibid.  New  England  man  beats  high  for 
p.  188.  liberty ;  his  engagement  in  the 
1  General  Trumbull  wrote  to  service  he  thinks  purely  volun- 
Washington,  Dec.  1775  :  *  The  tary,  therefore  when  the  time  of 
late  extraordinary  and  reprehen-  enlistment  is  out  he  thinks  him- 
Bible  conduct  of  some  of  the  self  not  holden  without  further 
troops  of  this  colony  impresses  engagement.  This  was  the  case 
me  and  the  minds  of  many  of  in  the  last  war.  I  greatly  fear  its 
our  people  with  grief,  surprise,  operation  amongst  the  soldiers 
and  indignation.  .  .  .  There  is  of  the  other  colonies,  as  I  am 
great  difficulty  to  support  liberty,  sensible  that  it  is  the  genius  and 
to  exercise  government,  to  main-  spirit  of  our  people.'  Ibid.  p. 
tain  subordination,  and  at  the  183. 


230    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CE.  xi. 

shrewd,  brave,  prosperous,  and  highly  intelligent  yeomen 
who  nocked  to  the  American  camp  ;  but  they  were  very 
different  men  from  those  who  defended  the  walls  of 
Leyden,  or  immortalised  the  field  of  Bannockburn.  Few 
of  the  great  pages  of  history  are  less  marked  by  the 
stamp  of  heroism  than  the  American  Revolution ; 
and  perhaps  the  most  formidable  of  the  difficulties 
which  Washington  had  to  encounter  were  in  his  own 
camp. 

Had  there  been  a  general  of  any  enterprise  or  genius 
at  the  head  of  the  British  army,  the  Americans  could 
scarcely  have  escaped  a  great  disaster;  but  at  this 
period,  and  indeed  during  all  the  earlier  period  of  the 
Revolutionary  War,  the  English  exhibited  an  utter 
absence  of  all  military  capacity.  That  spirit  of  enter- 
prise and  daring  which  had  characterised  every  branch 
of  the  service  during  the  administration  of  Chatham, 
had  absolutely  disappeared.  Every  week  was  of  vital 
importance  at  a  time  when  undisciplined  yeomen  were 
being  drilled  into  regular  troops,  and  the  different  pro- 
vincial contingents  were  being  slowly  and  painfully 
organised  into  a  compact  army.  But  week  after  week, 
month  after  month,  passed  away,  while  the  British 
lay  inactively  behind  their  trenches.  After  the  first 
reinforcements  had  arrived  at  the  end  of  May  1775, 
General  Gage  had  upwards  of  11,000  men  at  his 
disposal,  including  seamen  and  loyalists  ;  yet  even  then 
weeks  of  inactivity  followed.  At  Bunker's  Hill  more 
than  1 ,000  men  were  lost  in  capturing  a  position  which 
during  several  months  might  have  been  occupied  any 
day  without  resistance.  Gage  knew  that  the  town 
which  he  held  was  bitterly  hostile ;  that  the  Americans 
greatly  outnumbered  him ;  that  they  occupied  strong 
and  fortified  positions ;  that  he  was  himself  secure 
through  his  command  of  the  sea  ;  that  his  army  was 
the  sole  support  of  the  British  Empire  in  New  England. 


CH.  xi.  INACTIVITY  OF  GAGE.  231 

A  very  large  proportion  of  his  soldiers  were  incapaci- 
tated by  illness.1  He  considered  those  who  remained 
too  few  to  be  divided  with  safety ;  and  he  main- 
tained that,  in  the  absence  of  sufficient  means  of  trans- 
port, it  would  be  both  rash  and  useless  to  attempt 
to  penetrate  into  the  country,  and  that  success  would 
only  drive  the  Americans  out  of  one  stronghold  into 
another. 

He  probably  feared,  also,  by  energetic  measures,  to 
commit  the  country  irrevocably  to  a  war  which  might 
still  be  possibly  avoided,  and  to  produce  in  an  undecided 
and  divided  people  an  outburst  of  military  enthusiasm. 
There  was  a  widespread  expectation  that  the  resistance 
would  fall  to  pieces  through  the  divisions  of  the 
Americans,  through  the  stress  of  the  blockade,  or  in 
consequence  of  the  conciliatory  propositions  of  North. 
Gage  would  risk  nothing.  His  information  was  miser- 
ably imperfect,  and  he  was  probably  very  indifferently 
informed  of  the  extreme  weakness  of  the  Americans. 
The  Provincials  had  as  yet  no  cavalry.  They  had 
scarcely  any  bayonets.  Their  ammunition  was  so  de- 
plorably scanty  that  in  the  beginning  of  August  it  was 
discovered  that  there  were  only  nine  rounds  of  ammu- 
nition for  each  man,  and  a  fortnight  passed  before  they 
received  additional  supplies,  and  in  this  condition  they 
succeeded  in  blockading,  almost  without  resistance,  a 
powerful  English  army.  Nor  was  Gage  more  success- 
ful in  conciliating  than  in  fighting.  He  had  made  an 
agreement  with  the  inhabitants  of  Boston  that,  on 

1  According  to  Bancroft,  Gage  duty.    (Bancroft,  Hist,    of   the 

had  never  more  than  6,500  ef-  United      States,     viii.    42-44.) 

fective troops, though  hisnominal  Still    the    British    troops    were 

force,  including  sailors  and  loyal-  regular   soldiers,  well  provided 

ists,  was    estimated    at    11,500  with  all  munitions  of  war,  while 

men.    Washington  at  this  time  the  Americans  were  almost  un- 

had  nominally  17,000  men,  but  disciplined  and  singularly  des« 

never  more  than  14,500  fit  for  titute  of  all  that  was  required. 

17 


232    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.   CH.  xi. 

delivering  up  their  arms,  they  might  depart  with  their 
effects ;  but  he  soon  after  repented,  and  though  the 
people  had  complied,  he  refused  to  fulfil  his  promise. 
Many,  indeed,  were  allowed  to  depart,  but  they  were 
obliged  to  leave  their  effects  behind  as  a  security  for 
their  loyalty. 

At  length,  in  October,  he  was  recalled,  and  General 
Howe  assumed  the  command;  but  the  spirit  of  indecision 
and  incapacity  still  presided  over  the  British  forces. 
In  November  and  December,  the  time  for  which  the 
American  troops  enlisted  having  ended,  most  of  them 
insisted  on  disbanding,  and  a  new  army  had  to  be 
formed  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy.  On  the  last  day 
of  December  1775,  when  the  old  army  had  been  dis- 
banded, only  9,650  men  had  been  enlisted  to  supply 
their  place,  and  more  than  1,000  of  these  were  on 
furlough,  which  it  had  been  necessary  to  grant  in  order 
to  persuade  them  to  enlist.1  Yet  not  a  single  attempt 
appears  to  have  been  made  to  break  the  American  lines. 
'  It  is  not  in  the  page  of  history,  perhaps,'  wrote  Wash- 
ington, *  to  furnish  a  case  like  ours  :  to  maintain  a  post 
within  musket-shot  of  the  enemy  for  six  months  together 
without  powder,  and  at  the  same  time  to  disband  our 
army  and  recruit  another  within  that  distance  of  twenty 
odd  British  regiments.' 2  *  My  situation/  he  wrote  in 
February  1776,  *  has  been  such  that  I  have  been  obliged 
to  use  art  to  conceal  it  from  my  own  officers,'  and  he 
expressed  his  emphatic  astonishment  that  Howe  had  not 
obliged  him,  under  very  disadvantageous  circumstances, 
to  defend  the  lines  he  had  occupied.3 

The  negligence  and  delay  of  the  British  probably 
saved  the  American  cause,  and  great  efforts  were  made 
tc  recruit  the  provincial  army.  Before  many  weeks  the 


»  Washington's  Works,  i.  164.  »  Ibid.  iii.  221,  222. 

*  Ibid.  iii.  285. 


CH.  xi.        AMERICAN  ARMY  AND  NAVY.         233 

army  around  Boston  had  considerably  increased,  and 
before  the  middle  of  the  year  it  was  pretended,  though 
probably  with  great  exaggeration,  that  the  Americans 
had  altogether  80,000  men  in  arms.1  In  April  the 
Congress  voted  about  1,300,000?.  for  the  support  of  the 
army,  and  in  June  it  offered  a  bounty  of  ten  dollars  for 
every  man  who  would  enlist  for  three  years.  Large 
numbers  of  cannon  were  cast  in  New  York,  and  great 
exertions  were  made  to  fit  out  a  fleet.  A  hardy  sea- 
faring population,  scattered  over  a  long  seaboard,  accus- 
tomed from  childhood  both  to  smuggling  and  to  distant 
commercial  enterprises,  formed  an  admirable  material  for 
the  new  navy.  The  old  privateersmen  of  the  last  war 
resumed  their  occupation,  and  the  number  of  British 
merchant  vessels  that  were  captured  brought  a  rich 
return  to  the  American  sailors.  The  want  of  ammu- 
nition was  the  most  serious  deficiency,  but  it  was 
gradually  supplied.  Manufactories  of  arms  and  gun- 
powder were  set  up  in  different  provinces.  The 
Americans  succeeded  in  purchasing  powder  in  Africa, 
in  the  Bahama  Islands,  and  in  Ireland.  A  few  daring 
men  sailed  from  Charleston  to  East  Florida,  which  had 
never  joined  in  opposition  to  the  Government,  and  sur- 
prised and  captured  near  St.  Augustine  a  ship  containing 
15,000  Ibs.  of  powder.  A  cargo,  which  was  but  little 
less  considerable,  was  seized  by  the  people  of  Georgia 
immediately  on  its  arrival  from  England  ;  and  several 
ships,  carrying  military  stores  to  Boston,  were  inter- 
cepted before  the  British  appear  to  have  been  aware 
that  American  privateers  were  upon  the  sea.  The  news 
from  Canada  was  extremely  discouraging,  but  it  was 
counterbalanced  by  a  great  triumph  in  Massachusetts. 


1  American  Remembrancer,  that  the  estimates  in  the 
1776,  part  ii.  p.  281.  It  is  evi-  American  Remembrancer  greatly 
dent  from  Washington's  letters  exceeded  the  truth. 


234   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   ea.  si. 

The  blockade  of  Boston  became  more  severe  ;  sickness 
disabled  many  of  the  British  soldiers ;  swarms  of  pri- 
vateers made  it  very  difficult  to  obtain  provisions  ; 
and  at  last,  on  the  night  of  March  4, 1776,  the  Americans 
obtained  possession  of  Dorchester  heights,  which  com- 
manded the  harbour.  The  town  was  now  no  longer 
tenable.  On  March  17,  Howe,  with  the  remainder  of 
his  army,  consisting  of  about  7,600  men,  sailed  for 
Halifax,  and  Washington  marched  in  triumph  into  the 
capital  of  Massachusetts. 

At  the  same  time  public  opinion  in  the  colonies 
began  to  run  strongly  in  the  direction  of  independence. 
Great  stress  has  been  placed  on  the  effect  of  an  anony- 
mous pamphlet  called  '  Common  Sense,5  advocating 
complete  separation  from  England,  which  appeared  at 
Philadelphia  in  January  1776.1  It  was  the  first  con- 
siderable work  of  the  notorious  Thomas  Paine,  who 
had  only  a  few  months  before  come  over  from  England, 
and  had  at  once  thrown  himself,  with  the  true  instinct 
of  a  revolutionist,  into  hostility  to  his  country.  Like 
all  his  works,  this  pamphlet  was  written  in  clear,  racy, 
vivid  English,  and  with  much  power  of  popular  reason- 
ing ;  and,  like  most  of  his  works,  it  was  shallow,  violent, 
and  scurrilous.  Much  of  it  consists  of  attacks  upon 
monarchy  in  general,  and  hereditary  monarchy  in  par- 
ticular ;  of  very  crude  schemes  for  the  establishment  of 
democratic  forms  of  government  in  America,  and  of 
violent  denunciations  of  the  English  king  and  people. 
England  is  described  by  this  newly  arrived  English- 
man as  '  that  barbarous  and  hellish  power  which  hath 
stirred  up  the  Indians  and  negroes  to  destroy  us.'  The 
lingering  attachment  to  her  is  ridiculed  as  mere  local 
prejudice.  Not  one  third  part  of  the  inhabitants  even 
of  Pennsylvania,  it  is  said,  are  of  English  descent ;  and 


the  American  Remembrancer,  1776,  part  i.  pp.  238-241. 


CH.  xi.  *  COMMON  SENSE.'  235 

the  Americans  are  recommended  to  put  to  death  as 
traitors  all  their  countrymen  who  were  taken  in  arms 
for  the  King.  At  the  same  time  the  arguments  show- 
ing that  America  was  capable  of  subsisting  as  an  in- 
dependent Power,  and  that,  as  a  part  of  the  British  Em- 
pire, she  could  only  be  a  secondary  object  in  the  system 
of  British  politics,  were  stated  with  great  force.  The 
present  moment,  it  was  urged,  was  eminently  oppor- 
tune for  complete  separation.  Reunion  could  only  be 
purchased  by  concessions  that  would  be  fatal  to  Ameri- 
can liberty.  Cordial  reconciliation  was  no  longer  possi- 
ble, and  America  had  now  the  inestimable  advantage  of 
the  military  experience  of  the  last  war,  which  had  filled 
the  country  with  veteran  soldiers.  If  the  struggle  were 
adjourned  for  forty  or  fifty  years,  the  Americans  would 
no  doubt  be  more  numerous,  but  they  would  probably 
be  less  united,  and  it  was  quite  possible  that  there 
would  not  be  a  general  or  skilful  military  officer  among 
them. 

It  is  said  that  not  less  than  100,000  copies  of  this 
pamphlet  were  sold ;  and  Washington  himself,  not  long 
after  its  appearance,  described  it  as  '  working  a  powerful 
change  in  the  minds  of  many  men/ l  As  is  usually,  how- 
ever, the  case  with  very  popular  political  writings,  its 
success  was  mainly  due  to  extraneous  circumstances. 
It  fell  in  with  the  prevailing  tendency  of  the  time,  and 
gave  an  expression  to  sentiments  which  were  rising  in 
countless  minds.  The  position  of  men  who  were  profess- 
ing unbounded  devotion  to  their  Sovereign,  and  were  at 
the  same  time  imprisoning  his  governors,  waging  war 
against  his  armies,  and  invading  a  peaceful  province 
which  was  subject  to  his  rule,  was  manifestly  untenable. 
When  blood  was  once  shed,  amid  the  deepening  excite- 
ment of  the  contest  the  figments  of  lawyers  disappeared, 

1  Washington's  Works,  iii.  276,  347. 


236    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

and  tlie  struggle  assumed  a  new  character  of  earnest- 
ness and  animosity.  Several  acts  of  war  had  already  been 
committed,  of  which  Americans  might  justly  complain, 
and  others  were  grossly  exaggerated  or  misrepresented. 
The  conduct  of  the  British  troops  in  the  beginning  of 
the  war  in  firing  upon  the  Provincials  at  Lexington, 
was  absurdly  described  as  a  wanton  massacre.  The 
conduct  of  Gage  to  the  inhabitants  of  Boston,  and  the 
burning  of  Charleston  during  the  battle  of  Bunker's 
Hill  to  prevent  it  from  being  a  shelter  for  American 
soldiers,  were  more  justly  objected  to ;  while  the  pro- 
ceedings of  Lord  Dunmore  in  Virginia  raised  the  in- 
dignation of  the  colonists  to  the  highest  point.  When 
the  news  of  the  burning  of  Norfolk  arrived,  Washing- 
ton expressed  his  hope  that  it  would  c  unite  the  whole 
country  in  one  indissoluble  band  against  a  nation  which 
seems  to  be  lost  to  every  sense  of  virtue,  and  those  feel- 
ings which  distinguish  a  civilised  people  from  the  most 
barbarous  savages/ l 

If  such  language  could  be  employed  by  such  a  man, 
it  is  easy  to  conceive  how  fierce  a  spirit  must  have  been 
abroad.  In  the  dissolution  of  all  government,  mob  in- 
timidation had  a  great  power  over  politicians,  and  mobs 
are  always  in  favour  of  the  strongest  measures ;  and 
the  adoption  of  the  policy  of  armed  resistance  had 
naturally  given  an  increased  power  to  those  who  had 
been  the  first  to  advocate  it.  Every  step  which  was 
taken  in  England  added  to  the  exasperation.  Already 
the  Americans  had  been  proclaimed  rebels  ;  and  all 
commercial  intercourse  with  them  had  been  forbidden. 
The  petition  of  Congress  to  the  King,  which  was  the 
last  serious  effort  of  America  for  pacification,  was  duly 
taken  over  to  England  ;  but,  after  a  short  delay,  Lord 
Dartmouth  informed  the  delegates  that  *  no  answer 

1  Life  and  Correspondence  of  Joseph  Reed,  i.  148. 


CH.  xi.         REASONS  FOR  SEPARATION.         237 

would  be  given  to  it.'  An  Act  of  Parliament  was 
passed  authorising  the  confiscation  of  all  American 
ships  and  cargoes,  and  of  all  vessels  of  other  nations 
trading  with  the  American  ports ;  and  by  a  clause  of 
especial  atrocity,  the  commanders  of  the  British  ships 
of  war  were  empowered  to  seize  the  crews  of  all  Ameri- 
can vessels,  and  compel  them,  under  pain  of  being 
treated  as  mutineers,  to  serve  against  their  countrymen.1 
All  these  things  contributed  to  sever  the  colonies 
from  amicable  connection  with  England,  and  to  make 
the  prospect  of  reconciliation  appear  strange  and  re- 
mote. Separation,  it  was  plausibly  said,  was  the  act 
of  the  British  Parliament  itself,  which  had  thrown  the 
thirteen  colonies  out  of  the  protection  of  the  Crown. 
But  another  and  more  practical  consideration  concurred 
with  the  foregoing  in  producing  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence. One  of  the  gravest  of  the  questions  which 
were  agitating  the  revolutionary  party  was  the  expe- 
diency of  asking  for  foreign,  and  especially  for  French, 
assistance.  France  had  hitherto  been  regarded  in 
America,  even  more  than  in  England,  as  a  natural 
enemy.  She  was  a  despotic  Power,  and  could  not 
therefore  have  much  real  sympathy  with  a  struggle  for 
constitutional  liberty.  Her  expulsion  from  America 
had  been  for  generations  one  of  the  first  objects  of 
American  patriots ;  and  if  she  again  mixed  in  American 
affairs,  it  was  natural  that  she  should  seek  to  regain 
the  province  she  had  so  lately  lost.  If  America  was 
destined  to  be  an  independent  Republic,  nothing  could 
be  more  dangerous  than  to  have  a  military  and  aggres- 
sive colony  belonging  to  the  most  powerful  despot- 
ism in  Europe  planted  on  her  frontiers.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  appeared  more  than  probable  that  the 


16  Geo.  III.  o.  5. 


238    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  n. 

intervention  or  non-intervention  of  France  would  deter- 
mine the'  result  of  the  present  struggle.  If  America 
were  cordially  united  in  her  resistance  to  England,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  subdue  her ;  but  it  was  quite 
evident  to  serious  men  that  America  was  not  united ; 
that  outside  New  England  there  was  scarcely  an 
approach  to  unanimity;  that  powerful  minorities  in 
almost  every  province  were  ardently  attached  to  Eng- 
land ;  and  that,  of  the  remainder  of  the  population,  a 
very  large  proportion  were  vacillating,  selfish,  or  indif- 
ferent, ready,  if  the  occasion  could  be  found,  to  be 
reconciled  with  England,  and  altogether  unprepared  to 
make  any  long  or  strenuous  sacrifices  in  the  cause. 
Under  these  circumstances  the  revolutionary  leaders 
had  much  to  fear. 

There  was  a  party  in  the  Congress,  among  whom 
Patrick  Henry  was  conspicuous,  who  desired  to  pur- 
chase French  assistance  by  large  territorial  cessions 
in  America ; l  but  this  view  found  little  favour.  Apart 
from  all  considerations  of  territorial  aggrandisement, 
it  was  the  evident  interest  of  France  to  promote 
the  independence  of  America.  She  could  thus  obtain 
for  herself  a  share  in  that  vast  field  of  commerce  from 
which  she  had  hitherto  been  excluded  by  the  Navigation 
Act.  The  humiliation  of  the  loss  of  Canada  would  be 
amply  avenged  if  the  thirteen  old  colonies  were  separated 
from  England.  A  formidable  if  not  fatal  blow  would 
be  given  to  that  maritime  supremacy  against  which 
France  had  so  long  and  so  vainly  struggled ;  and  the 
French  West  India  islands,  which  were  now  in  time  of 
war  completely  at  the  mercy  of  England,  would  become 
comparatively  secure  if  the  harbours  of  the  neighbour- 
ing continent  were  held  by  a  neutral  or  a  friendly  Power. 
Ever  since  the  Peace  of  Paris,  a  feeling  of  deep  humilia- 


1  Adams'  Life,  Works,  i.  201. 


CH.  xi.  THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE.  239 

tion  and  discontent  had  brooded  over  French  society ; 
and  even  in  Europe  the  influence  of  France  appeared 
to  have  diminished.  The  recent  appearance  of  Russia 
as  an  active  and  formidable  agent  in  the  European 
system,  and  the  recent  growth  of  Prussia  into  the 
dimensions  of  a  first-class  Power,  had  profoundly  altered 
the  European  equilibrium.  Both  of  these  Powers  lay 
in  a  great  degree  beyond  the  influence  of  France ;  and 
although  one  school  of  French  politicians  maintained 
that  the  rise  of  Prussia  was  beneficial,  as  establishing 
a  balance  of  power  in  Germany,  and  checking  the  pre- 
ponderance of  Austria,  another  school  looked  upon  it 
as  seriously  affecting  both  French  ascendency  and 
French  security.  Great  indignation  was  felt  in  Paris 
at  the  passive  attitude  of  the  Government  at  the  time 
of  the  first  partition  of  Poland  in  1772,  and  during  the 
war  that  ended  in  the  treaty  of  Kainardji  in  1774,  when 
Russia  succeeded  in  extending  her  territory  southwards, 
in  separating  the  Crimea  from  the  Turkish  Empire,  and 
in  acquiring  a  right  of  protectorate  over  Christians  in 
Constantinople.  As  long  as  the  old  King  lived,  there 
seemed  little  chance  of  a  more  active  policy ;  but  in 
May  1774  Lewis  XV.  died,  and  a  new  and  more  ad- 
venturous spirit  was  ruling  at  the  Tuileries. 

Under  such  circumstances  it  appeared  to  John 
Adams,  and  to  the  more  sagacious  of  his  supporters, 
that  it  would  be  possible  to  obtain  from  France  such  a 
measure  of  assistance  as  would  insure  the  independence 
of  America  without  involving  her  future  in  European 
complications.  But  the  first  condition  of  this  policy 
was  a  declaration  by  the  colonies  that  they  were  finally 
and  for  ever  detached  from  Great  Britain.  France  had 
no  possible  interest  in  their  constitutional  liberties. 
She  had  a  vital  interest  in  their  independence.  It  was 
idle  to  suppose  that  she  would  risk  a  war  with  England 
for  rebels  who  might  at  any  time  be  converted  by  con- 


240    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xi. 

stitutional  concessions  into  loyal  subjects,  and  enemies 
of  the  enemies  of  England. 

The  questions  of  a  French  alliance  and  of  a  declara- 
tion of  independence  were  thus  indissolubly  connected. 
In  the  autumn  of  1775  a  motion  was  made  in  Congress, 
and  strongly  supported  by  John  Adams,  to  send  ambas- 
sadors to  France.  But  Congress  still  shrank  from  so 
formidable  a  step,  though  it  agreed,  after  long  debates 
and  hesitation,  to  form  a  secret  committee  'to  corre- 
spond with  friends  in  Great  Britain,  Ireland,  and  other 
parts  of  the  world.' l  But  the  conduct  of  England  her- 
self soon  dispelled  the  hesitation  of  America.  England 
found  herself  at  this  time  confronted  with  a  military 
problem  which  she  was  utterly  unable  by  her  own  un- 
assisted efforts  to  solve.  The  same  pressure  of  financial 
distress,  the  same  reluctance  to  increase  the  army 
estimates,  which  had  made  the  English  ministers  so 
anxious  to  throw  upon  America  the  burden  of  support- 
ing her  own  army,  had  prevented  the  maintenance  of 
any  considerable  army  at  home.  Public  opinion  had 
never  yet  fully  accepted  the  fact  that  the  forces  which 
were  very  adequate  under  Walpole  were  wholly  insuffi- 
cient after  the  Peace  of  Paris.  The  King,  indeed,  had 
for  many  years  steadily  maintained  that  military  eco- 
nomy in  England  had  been  carried  to  a  fatal  point, 
and  that  the  army  was  much  below  what  the  security 
of  the  Empire  required ;  but  his  warnings  had  been  dis- 
regarded.2 The  feeling  of  the  country,  the  feeling  of 

1  Adams'  Life,  Works,  i.  200-  military  force   in  that   island ; 
203.  but  the  economical,  and  I  may 

2  AsearlyasAug.il,  1765,  the  say  injudicious,  ideas    of   this 
King  had  written   to   Conway :  country  in  time  of  peace,  make 
'The  only  method  that  at  pre-  it  not  very  practicable,  for  a  corps 
sent  occurs  to  me  by  which  the  ought  on  purpose  to  be  raised  for 
French  can  be  prevented  settling  that    service,  we   having    more 
on  the  coast  of  Newfoundland  places  to  garrison  than  we  have 
would  be  the  having  a  greater  troops  to  supply.'     He  adds  that 


m.  xi.     INADEQUACY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  ARMY.     241 

the  House  of  Commons,  against  large  standing  armies 
was  so  strong  that  it  was  impossible  to  resist  it.  As 
late  as  December  1774,  the  seamen  had  been  reduced 
from  20,000  to  16,000,  and  the  land  forces  had  been 
fixed  at  17,547  effective  men.1  In  the  following  year, 
when  the  war  became  inevitable,  Parliament  voted 
28,000  seamen  and  55,000  land  forces,  but  even  this 
was  utterly  inadequate  for  the  conquest  of  America, 
and  as  yet  it  only  existed  upon  paper.  Most  of  the 
troops  that  could  be  safely  spared  had  been  already 
sent,  and  the  result  had  been  the  formation  of  two 
armies,  one  of  which  was  not  more  than  sufficient  for 
the  protection  of  Canada,  while  the  other  had  been  for 
months  confined  within  the  town  of  Boston. 

It  was  evident  that  much  larger  forces  were  required 
if  America  was  to  be  subdued,  and  Howe  strongly  urged 
that  he  could  make  no  aggressive  movement  with  any 
prospect  of  success  unless  he  had  at  least  20,000  men. 
To  raise  the  required  troops  at  short  notice  was  very 
difficult.  In  January  1776,  Lord  Barrington  warned 
the  King  that  Scotland  had  never  yet  been  so  bare  of 
troops,  and  that  those  in  England  were  too  few  for  the 
security  of  the  country.2  The  land  tax  for  1776  was 
raised  to  four  shillings  in  the  pound.  New  duties  were 
imposed ;  new  bounties  were  offered.  Recruiting  agents 
traversed  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  and  the  most 
remote  districts  of  Ireland,  and  the  poor  Catholics  of 


we  are  '  very  unable  to  draw  the  ing  orders  to  Ireland ;  this  was 

sword.' — British  Museum.    Eg.  objected  to  in  the  Cabinet ;  if  it 

MSS.  982.  had  then  been  adopted,  the  army 

On  August  26, 1775,  he  wrote  would  have  been  at  least  2,000 

to  Lord  North :  '  The  misfortune  or  3,000  men  stronger  at  this 

is,  that  at  the  beginning  of  this  hour.' — Correspondence  of  George 

American  businessthere  has  been  III.  with  Lord  North,  i.  265,  266. 

an  unwillingness  to  augment  the  l  Adolphus,  ii.  159. 

army  and  navy.   I  proposed  early  *  The  Political  Life  of  Lord 

in  the  summer  the  sending  beat-  Barrington,  pp.  162-164. 


242    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   en.  xi. 

Munster  and  Connaught,  who  had  been  so  long  ex- 
cluded from  the  English  army,  were  gladly  welcomed. 
Eecruits,  however,  came  in  very  slowly.  There  was  no 
enthusiasm  for  a  war  with  English  settlers.  The  press- 
gangs  met  with  an  unusual  resistance.  No  measure 
short  of  a  conscription  could  raise  at  once  the  necessary 
army  in  England,  and  to  propose  a  conscription  would 
be  fatal  to  any  Government. 

The  difficulties  of  subduing  America  by  land  opera- 
tions, even  under  the  most  Sworn-able  circumstances, 
were  enormous.  Except  on  the  sea-coast  there  were  no 
fixed  points,  no  fortified  places  of  such  importance  that 
their  possession  could  give  a  permanent  command  of 
any  large  tract  of  territory ;  the  vast  distances  and  the 
difficulties  of  transport  made  it  easy  for  insurgents  to 
avoid  decisive  combats  ;  and  in  a  hostile  and  very  thinly 
populated  country,  the  army  must  derive  its  supplies 
almost  exclusively  from  England.1  The  magnitude,  the 
ruinous  expense  of  such  an  enterprise,  and  the  almost 
absolute  impossibility  of  carrying  the  war  into  distant 
inland  quarters,  ought  to  have  been  manifest  to  all,  and 
no  less  a  person  than  Lord  Barrington,  the  Secretary 
for  War,  held  from  the  beginning  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  England  to  subdue  America  by  an  army, 
though  he  thought  it  might  be  subdued  by  a  fleet  which 


1  General  Lloyd,  who  was  one  that,  in  the  existing  condition  of 

of  the  best  English  writers  on  the  opinion  in  America,  if  NewEng- 

art  of  war,  maintained  that  Eng-  land  were  subdued,  the  rest  of 

land,  in  consequence  of  her  pos-  the   colonies   would  all  submit, 

session  of  Canada,  might  have  The    impossibility,  however,  of 

completely  crushed  the  four  pro-  subduing  them  by  land  measures, 

vinces  of  New  England  by  ope-  if  they  did  not,  he  clearly  showed, 

rating  vigorously  on  the  line  of  See  a  remarkable  chapter  CD  the 

country  (about  150  miles)   ex-  American  war  in  his  '  Eeflectiona 

tending  from  Boston  to  Albany,  on  the  Principles  of  War,'   ap- 

or  to  some  other  point  on  the  pended  to  his   History   of   the 

Hudson  River  ;  and  he  thought  Seven  Years'  War. 


CH.  xi.  HARRINGTON — HANOVERIAN   TROOPS.  243 

blockaded  its  seaport  towns  and  destroyed  its  commerce. 
But  Barrington  was  one  of  the  most  devoted  of  the 
King's  friends,  and  he  was  a  conspicuous  instance  of  the 
demoralising  influence  of  the  system  of  politics  which 
had  lately  prevailed  in  England.  Already,  at  the  close 
of  1774,  he  informed  his  colleagues  in  the  clearest  and 
most  decisive  manner  of  his  disapproval  of  the  policy 
they  were  pursuing,  and  he  repeatedly  begged  the  King 
to  accept  his  resignation.  '  I  am  summoned  to  meetings  ' 
of  the  ministers,  he  complained,  *  when  I  sometimes 
think  it  my  duty  to  declare  my  opinions  openly  before 
perhaps  twenty  or  thirty  persons,  and  the  next  day  I 
am  forced  either  to  vote  contrary  to  them  or  to  vote 
with  an  Opposition  which  I  abhor.'  He  wished  to  retire 
both  from  the  ministry  and  from  Parliament,  but  he  had 
declared  that  he  would  remain  in  both  as  long  as  his 
Majesty  thought  fit,  and  he  accordingly  continued  year 
after  year  one  of  the  responsible  ministers  of  the  Crown 
though  he  believed  that  the  policy  of  the  Government 
was  mistaken  and  disastrous.  It  was  only  in  December 
1778  that  his  resignation  was  accepted.1 

The  King  was  the  real  director  of  the  Administra- 
tion, and  he  was  determined  to  relinquish  no  part  of  his 
dominions.  He  was  accordingly  reduced  to  the  humilia- 
ting necessity  of  asking  for  foreign  assistance  to  subdue 
his  own  subjects.  It  was  sought  from  many  quarters.  He 
himself,  as  Elector  of  Hanover,  agreed  to  lend  2,355  men 
of  his  Electoral  army  to  garrison  Minorca  and  Gibraltar, 
and  thus  to  release  some  British  soldiers  for  the  Ameri- 
can war.  The  Dutch  had  for  a  long  time  maintained 
a  Scotch  brigade  in  their  service,  and  the  Government 
wished  to  take  it  into  English  pay,  but  the  States- 
General  refused  to  consent.  Russia  had  just  concluded 
her  war  with  the  Turks,  and  it  was  hoped  that  she  might 

1  Political  Life  of  Lord  Barrington,  pp.  146-186. 


244         ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.       CH.  si, 

sell  some  20,000  of  her  spare  troops  to  the  English 
service,  but  Catherine  sternly  refused.  The  little 
sovereigns  of  Germany  were  less  chary,  and  were  quite 
ready  to  sell  their  subjects  to  England  to  fight  in  a 
quarrel  with  which  they  had  no  possible  concern.  The 
Duke  of  Brunswick,  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse  Cassel,  the 
Hereditary  Prince  of  Hesse  Cassel,  and  the  Prince  of 
Waldeck  were  the  chief  persons  engaged  in  this  white 
slave  trade,  and  they  agreed  for  a  liberal  payment  to 
supply  17,742  men  to  serve  under  English  officers  hi 
America.1  $£Ktj 

The  German  princelets  acted  after  their  kind,  and 
the  contempt  and  indignation  which  they  inspired  were 
probably  unmixed  with  any  feeling  of  surprise.  The 
conduct,  however,  of  England  in  hiring  German  mer- 
cenaries to  subdue  the  essentially  English  population 
beyond  the  Atlantic,  made  reconciliation  hopeless  and 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  inevitable.  It  was  idle 
for  the  Americans  to  have  any  further  scruples  about 
calling  in  foreigners  to  assist  them  when  England  had 
herself  set  the  example.  It  was  necessary  that  they 
should  do  so  if  they  were  successfully  to  resist  the 
powerful  reinforcement  which  was  thus  brought  against 
them. 

It  belongs  rather  to  the  historian  of  America  than  to 
the  historian  of  England  to  recount  in  detail  the  various 
steps  that  led  immediately  to  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. It  will  here  be  sufficient  to  indicate  very 
briefly  the  main  forces  that  were  at  work.  Even  after 
the  enlistment  of  foreign  mercenaries  by  Great  Britain, 
the  difficulty  of  carrying  the  Declaration  was  very  great. 

1  See  on  the    terms    of  this  his  opinion  of  the  transaction  by 

bargain,  Correspondence  of  George  claiming  to  levy  on  the  hired 

JIT.  with  Lord  North,  i.  258-260.  troops  which  passed  through  his 

266,  267,  294,   295.     Frederick  dominions  the  same  duty  as  on 

the  Great  is  said  to  have  marked  so  many  head  of  cattle. 


CH.  xi.       DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.       245 

As  late  as  March  1776,  John  Adams,  who  was  the  chief 
advocate  of  the  measure,  described  the  terror  and  dis- 
gust with  which  it  was  regarded  by  a  large  section  of 
the  Congress,  and  he  clearly  shows  the  nature  of  the 
opposition.  *  All  our  misfortunes,'  he  added,  '  arise  from 
the  reluctance  of  the  Southern  colonies  to  republican 
government/  and  he  complains  bitterly  that  '  popular 
principles  and  axioms  '  are  '  abhorrent  to  the  inclina- 
tions of  the  barons  of  the  South  and  the  proprietary 
interests  in  the  Middle  States,  as  well  as  to  that  avarice 
of  land  which  has  made  on  this  continent  so  many  vo- 
taries to  Mammon.'  It  was  necessary,  in  the  first  place, 
to  mould  the  governments  of  the  Southern  and  Middle 
States  into  a  purely  popular  form,  destroying  altogether 
the  proprietary  system  and  those  institutions  which  gave 
the  more  wealthy  planters,  if  not  a  preponderance,  at 
least  a  special  weight  in  the  management  of  affairs. 
The  Congress  recommended  the  colonists  *  where  no 
government  sufficient  to  the  exigencies  of  their  affairs 
hath  hitherto  been  established '  to  adopt  a  new  form  of 
government,  and  it  pronounced  it  necessary  that  the 
whole  proprietary  system  should  be  dissolved.1  The 
Revolution  was  speedily  accomplished,  and  the  tide  of 
democratic  feeling  ran  strongly  towards  independence. 
Virginia,  now  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the  revolutionary 
party,  concurred  fully  with  Massachusetts,  and  the  in- 
fluence of  these  two  leading  colonies  overpowered  the 
rest.  In  Pennsylvania,  in  New  Jersey,  in  Maryland,  in 
Delaware,  in  New  York,  in  South  Carolina,  there  was 
powerful  opposition,  but  the  strongest  pressure  was  ap- 
plied to  overcome  it.  New  Jersey  and  Maryland  first 
dropped  off  and  accepted  the  Resolution  of  Indepen- 
dence, but  South  Carolina  and  Pennsylvania  opposed  it 


1  Adams'  Works,  i.  207,  208,       the  United  States,  bk.  ii.  ch.i.; 
217,  218;  Story's  Constitution  of      Jay's  Life,  by  his  son,  i.  43. 


246    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  31. 

almost  to  the  last,  while  Delaware  was  divided  and  New 
York  abstained.  John  Adams  was  now  the  most  power- 
ful advocate,  while  John  Dickinson  was  the  chief  oppo- 
nent of  independence.  At  last,  however,  it  was  resolved 
not  to  show  any  appearance  of  dissension  to  the  world. 
The  arrival  of  a  new  delegate  from  Delaware,  and  the 
abstention  of  two  delegates  of  Pennsylvania,  gave  the 
party  of  independence  the  control  of  the  votes  of  these 
provinces.  South  Carolina,  for  the  sake  of  preserving 
unity,  changed  sides.  New  York  still  abstained,  and  on 
July  2,  1776,  the  twelve  colonies  resolved  that  *  these 
united  colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  free  and 
independent  States  ;  that  they  are  absolved  from  all  alle- 
giance to  the  British  Crown,  and  that  all  political  con- 
nection between  them  and  the  State  of  Great  Britain  is, 
and  ought  to  be,  totally  dissolved.'  Thomas  Jefferson,  of 
Virginia,  whose  literary  power  had  been  shown  in  many 
able  State  papers,  had  already  drawn  up  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  which  having  been  revised  by  Franklin 
and  by  John  Adams,  was  now  submitted  to  the  exa- 
mination of  Congress,  and  was  voted  after  some  slight 
changes  on  the  evening  of  the  4th.  It  proclaimed  that 
a  new  nation  had  arisen  in  the  world,  and  that  the 
political  unity  of  the  English  race  was  for  ever  at  an 
end. 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  THE  CONFLICT 


18 


24:8         ENGLAND    IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY,    en.  xin. 


CHAPTEE  II.1 

WHEN  General  Howe  sailed  from  Boston  for  Halifax  on 
March  17,  1776,  he  was  accompanied  by  rather  more 
than  7,000  soldiers,  besides  2,000  sailors  and  marines 
and  about  1,500  loyalist  refugees,  while  the  army  of 
Washington  amounted  to  21,800  men,  of  whom  2,700 
were  sick.  The  evacuation,  though  immediately  due  to 
the  capture  of  Dorchester  Heights,  was  not  altogether 
involuntary,  for  the  English  ministers  had  some  time 
before  authorised  and  counselled  him  to  leave  Boston 
and  repair  to  a  Southern  port,  though  they  left  the 
period  to  his  discretion.  In  April,  Washington  left 
Boston,  and  on  the  13th  of  the  month  he  arrived  at 
New  York,  which  now  became  the  great  centre  of  the 
forces  of  the  Revolution. 

Several  months  passed  with  but  little  stirring 
action  on  either  side.  The  Americans  were  busily  em- 
ployed in  calling  out  and  organising  their  forces,  in 
arresting  and  imprisoning  the  loyalists,  who  were  very 
numerous  about  New  York,  and  in  constructing  power- 
ful lines  of  entrenchment  on  Long  Island  for  the  de- 
fence of  the  city.  Recruits  came  in  slowly.  Desertions, 
jealousies,  and  quarrels  continued  with  little  abate- 
ment, and  the  disastrous  news  of  the  result  of  the 
expedition  against  Canada  and  the  appearance  of 
small-pox  among  the  troops  had  thrown  a  great  damp 
upon  American  patriotism.2  In  the  beginning  of  July, 
Colonel  Reed,  the  adjutant-general  of  the  forces,  wrote 

1  Chapter  XIII.  Lecky's  History       Century. 
of    England    in     the    Eighteenth          -  "Washington's  Works,  iii.  466. 


en.  xni.  HOWE  MOVES  TOWARDS  NEW  YORK.  249 

to  a  member  of  Congress  that  the  American  army 
was  now  less  than  8,000  men,  all  of  whom,  from  the 
general  to  the  private,  were  exceedingly  discouraged.1 
Soon,  however,  several  thousand  volunteers  or  militia- 
men arrived  from  the  country  about  New  York,  from 
Connecticut,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  and  Maryland. 
On  August  3,  Washington's  army  was  officially  reckoned 
at  20,537  men,  of  whom,  however,  nearly  3,800  were 
sick  or  on  furlough.  By  August  26  about  3,150  more 
men  had  come  in.2  They  were,  however,  badly  clothed, 
imperfectly  armed,  and  for  the  most  part  almost  with- 
out discipline  or  military  experience. 

General  Howe  in  the  meantime  was  drawing  nearer 
to  New  York.  He  passed  from  Halifax  to  Sandy 
Hook,  and  from  Sandy  Hook  to  Staten  Island,  where 
he  was  joined  by  the  fleet  from  England  under  his 
brother,  Lord  Howe.  Troops  withdrawn  from  Virginia 
and  South  Carolina,  regiments  from  England  and  the 
West  Indies,  and  a  large  body  of  newly  enrolled  Ger- 
mans, soon  filled  his  attenuated  ranks,  arid  he  found 
himself  at  the  head  of  little  less  than  30,000  well- 
appointed  soldiers.  On  August  22  and  23  between 
15,000  and  16,000  men  were  landed  without  opposition 
on  Long  Island,3  and  on  the  27th  they  totally  defeated 
the  portion  of  the  American  army  which  was  defending 
the  entrenchments.  If  Howe  had  known  how  to  im- 
prove his  victory  the  whole  force,  consisting  probably 
of  about  10,000  men,  must  have  been  at  his  mercy. 
By  the  strange  negligence  of  the  English  commander, 
by  the  great  skill  of  Washington,  and  by  the  assistance  of 

1  Stedman's    History    of   the  authorities   are    hopelessly  dis- 
American  War,  i.  207.  agreed  about  the  exact  numbers 

2  Washington's  Works,  i.  187  ;  engaged  in    Long    Island,   and 
iv.  G6.  among  the  Americans  themselves 

3  Howe's  Narrative,  p.  45.     I  there  are  very  great  differences, 
must,  however,  warn  the  reader  Compare  Eamsay,  Bancroft,  Sted- 
that  the  English  and  American  man,  and  Stanhope. 


250    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  CH.  xni. 

a  dense  fog,  the  Americans,  who  had  been  hemmed  in  oil 
a  corner  of  the  island  and  who  were  separated  from  the 
mainland  by  an  arm  of  the  sea  a  mile  wide,  succeeded 
in  effecting  their  retreat  in  the  early  hours  of  the  morn- 
ing, unimpeded  and  unobserved.  They  escaped,  how- 
ever, only  by  abandoning  the  lines  they  had  constructed 
with  much  labour,  and  on  September  15  Howe  com- 
pleted his  campaign  by  the  capture  of  New  York. 

The  blow  was  a  very  formidable  one  to  the  American 
cause,  and  it  had  for  some  time  been  foreseen.  On 
September  2  Washington  wrote  from  New  York  a 
letter  to  the  President  of  the  Congress,  in  which  he 
suggested  no  less  a  measure  than  the  deliberate  de- 
struction of  this  great  and  wealthy  commercial  town. 
*  Till  of  late,'  he  said,  *  I  had  no  doubt  in  my  own  mind 
of  defending  this  place ;  nor  should  I  have  yet,  if  the 
men  would  do  their  duty,  but  this  I  despair  of.  ... 
If  we  should  be  obliged  to  abandon  the  town,  ought  it 
to  stand  as  winter  quarters  for  the  enemy?  They 
would  derive  great  conveniences  from  it  on  the  one 
hand ;  and  much  property  would  be  destroyed  on  the 
other.  ...  At  present  I  dare  say  the  enemy  mean  to 
preserve  it  if  they  can.  If  Congress,  therefore,  should 
resolve  upon  the  destruction  of  it,  the  resolution  should 
be  a  profound  secret,  as  the  knowledge  of  it  will  make 
a  capital  change  in  their  plans.'1 

Such  a  suggestion,  emanating  from  such  a  man, 
furnishes  a  remarkable  comment  upon  the  indignation 
so  abundantly  expressed  by  the  revolutionary  party  at 
the  burning  of  Falrnouth  and  Norfolk  at  the  time  when 
these  little  towns  were  actually  occupied  by  troops  who 
were  firing  upon  the  English.  If  preparations  for  burn- 
ing New  York  were  not,  as  has  been  alleged,  actually 
made  before  the  Americans  evacuated  the  city,  it  is  at 


Washington's  Works,  iv.  74. 


CH.  xin.     PROPOSED  BURNING  OF  NEW  YORK. 

least  certain  that  such  a  step  was  at  this  time  openly 
and  frequently  discussed.1  Jay,  who  was  one  of  the 
most  conspicuous  of  the  New  York  patriots,  was  of 
opinion  that  not  only  the  city,  but  the  whole  surround- 
ing country,  should  be  reduced  to  ruin,2  and  the  former 
measure  was  strongly  advocated  by  Greene,  one  of  the 
most  popular  of  the  American  generals.  '  The  City 
and  Island  of  New  York,'  he  wrote,  ten  days  before  the 
surrender,  '  are  no  objects  to  us.  We  are  not  to  put 
them  in  competition  with  the  general  interest  of  America. 
Two-thirds  of  the  property  of  the  city  and  the  suburbs 
belong  to  Tories.  ...  I  would  burn  the  city  and 
suburbs,  and  that  for  the  following  reasons/  He  then 
proceeds  to  enumerate  the  military  advantages  that 
would  ensue,  and  adds,  *  all  these  advantages  would  re- 
sult from  the  destruction  of  the  city,  and  not  one  benefit 
can  arise  to  us  from  its  preservation,  that  I  can  con- 
ceive.'3 Joseph  Keed,  who  was  Adjutant-General  of 
the  American  army,  was  also  strongly  in  favour  of 
burning  New  York — '  a  city,'  he  said,  '  the  greater  part 
of  whose  inhabitants  are  plotting  our  destruction/  4 

Happily  for  its  own  reputation,  happily  perhaps  for 
its  influence  in  America,  Congress  rejected  the  counsel, 


1  In  a  letter  dated  Aug.  17,  Washington  wrote  to  the  Con- 
1776,  a  loyalist  who  had  escaped  vention  of  New  York  that  'a  re- 
from  New  York  wrote  :  '  Every  port  now  circulating  that  if  the 
means  of  defence  has  been  con-  American  army  should  be  obliged 
certed  to   secure  the    city   and  to  retreat  from  this  city,  any  in- 
whole  island  of  New  York  from  dividual  may  set  it  on  fire,'  was 
an   attack   of    the  royal   army.  wholly  unauthorised  by  him. — 
Should  General  Howe   succeed  Washington's  Works,  iv.  58. 
in  that  enterprise,  his  antagonist,  2  Life  and  Correspondence  of 
Mr.  Washington,  has  provided  a  Joseph  Reed,  i.  235. 
magazine  of  pitch,  tar,  and  com-  3  Washington's  Works,  iv.  85, 
bustibles,  to  burn  the  city  before  86.     This  letter  was  written  on 
he  shall  retreat  from  his  present  Sept.  5,  1776. 
station.' — Moore's  Diary  of  the  *  Life  of  J.  Reed,  i.  213. 
Revolution,  i.  288.     On  Aug.  23, 


252    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xin. 

and  New  York  fell  intact  into  the  hands  of  the  English.1 
But  the  knowledge  of  the  design  had  spread  abroad, 
and  there  were  men  who  were  quite  ready  to  carry  it 
into  effect.  Shortly  after  midnight,  on  the  morning  of 
September  21,  fires  burst  out  simultaneously  in  several 
parts  of  New  York.  The  church  bells  had  all  been 
carried  away  by  Washington  to  be  turned  into  cannon, 
so  there  was  great  difficulty  in  spreading  the  alarm. 
The  fire-engines  were  in  bad  repair,  and  before  the  fire 
could  be  extinguished  about  a  fourth  part  of  the  town 
was  reduced  to  ashes.  Several  women  and  children 
perished  in  the  flames,  and  many  hundreds  of  families 
were  reduced  in  an  hour  from  comfort  to  beggary.  But 
for  the  admirable  efforts  of  English  soldiers  under 
General  Eobertson,  and  of  sailors  who  landed  from  the 
fleet,  assisted  by  a  sudden  change  of  wind,  it  is  pro- 
bable that  nothing  would  have  remained  of  the  future 
capital  of  America.  Men  with  combustibles  in  their 
hands  were  seized  and  killed  either  by  the  soldiers  or 
the  populace.  Tryon,  the  English  Governor  of  New 
York,  expressed  his  firm  belief  that  the  conflagration 
had  been  deliberately  prepared  with  the  full  knowledge 
of  Washington  before  the  Americans  had  left  the  town, 
and  had  been  executed  by  officers  of  his  army,  some  of 
whom  *  were  found  concealed  in  the  city.'  In  this  con- 
jecture he  was  undoubtedly  mistaken.  The  letters  of 
Washington  show  that  he  had  no  knowledge  of  the 
conflagration,  'but  few  impartial  judges  will  question 
the  distinct  assertion  of  General  Howe  that  the  fire  was, 
beyond  all  question,  an  incendiary  one,  and  it  is  almost 
equally  certain  that  it  owed  its  origin  to  the  revolution- 
ary party.2 

1  •  The  Congress    having  re-  *  See,  on  this  fire,  the  descrip- 

Bolved  that  it  [New  York]  should  tion  sent  by  Governor  Tryon  to 

not  be    destroyed.' — Washing-  Lord  George  Germaine,  in  the 

ton's  Works,  iv.  86.  Documents  relating  to  the  His- 


CH.  xiii.  THE  AMERICAN  ARMY.      .  253 

The  superiority  of  the  English  over  the  Americana 
at  Long  Island,  both  in  numbers,  in  arms,  and  in  mili- 
tary experience,  was  so  great  that  the  defeat  reflected 
no  shadow  of  discredit  upon  the  beaten  army,  who 
appear  to  have  fought  with  great  courage  and  resolu- 
tion ;  but  the  extreme  anarchy  and  insubordination 
that  still  reigned  within  the  ranks,  and  the  great  want 
of  real  patriotism  and  self-sacrifice  that  was  displayed, 
boded  ill  to  the  revolutionary  cause.  In  the  letter  to 
which  I  have  already  referred,  written  by  Colonel  Reed 
before  the  battle,  we  have  a  vivid  picture  of  the  condi- 
tion of  the  American  army.  *  Almost  every  villainy 
and  rascality/  he  wrote,  '  is  daily  practised  with  im- 
punity. Unless  some  speedy  and  effectual  means  of 
reform  are  adopted  by  Congress  our  cause  will  be  lost. 
As  the  war  must  be  carried  on  systematically,  you 
must  establish  your  army  upon  a  permanent  footing, 
and  give  your  officers  good  pay,  that  they  may  be,  and 
support  the  character  of,  gentlemen,  and  not  be  driven 
by  a  scanty  allowance  to  the  low  and  dirty  arts  which 
many  of  them  practise  to  filch  the  public  of  more 
money  than  all  the  amount  of  the  difference  of  pay.  It 

tory  of  New  York,  viii.  686,  687,  interesting  book  the  History  of 
and  some  interesting  contempo-  New  York  by  the  loyalist  Judge 
rary  accounts  in  Moore's  Diary,  Jones,  who  was  present  when 
i.  311-315.  See,  too,  Washing-  the  event  took  place,  there  is  an 
ton's  Works,  iv.  100,  101.  Sted-  account  of  the  conflagration  in 
man  speaks  of  the  conflagration  which  it  is  attributed  without 
as  the  accomplishment  of  a  any  question  to  the  revolution- 
settled  plan  of  the  Americans  ists  (Jones's  History  of  New 
formed  before  the  evacuation,  York,  i.  120, 121) ;  and  the  editor 
and  he  states  that  several  cart-  has  collected  a  great  number  of 
loads  of  bundles  of  pine-sticks  contemporary  documents  sup- 
dipped  in  brimstone  were  found  porting  the  same  conclusion  (pp. 
next  day  in  cellars  to  which  the  611-619).  General  Greene  had 
incendiaries  had  not  time  to  set  predicted  that,  if  Washington 
fire.  He  adds  that  about  1,100  was  obliged  to  retire,  *  two  to 
houses  were  burnt.—  -Stedman's  one,  New  York  is  laid  in  ashes.1 
Hist.  i.  208,  209.  In  that  very  —Life  of  J.  Reed,  i.  213. 


254   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  CH.  xin. 

is  not  strange  that  there  should  be  a  number  of  bad 
officers  in  the  continental  service  when  you  consider 
that  many  of  them  were  chosen  by  their  own  men,  who 
elected  them,  not  for  a  regard  to  merit,  but  from  the 
knowledge  they  had  of  their  being  ready  to  associate 
with  them  on  the  footing  of  equality.  It  was  some- 
times the  case  that  when  a  company  was  forming,  the 
men  would  choose  those  for  officers  who  consented  to 
throw  their  pay  into  a  joint  stock  with  the  privates, 
from  which  captains,  lieutenants,  ensigns,  sergeants, 
corporals,  drummers,  and  privates  drew  equal  shares. 
Can  it  be  wondered  at  that  a  captain  should  be  tried 
and  broken  for  stealing  his  soldiers'  blankets  ?  or  that 
another  officer  should  be  found  shaving  his  men  in  the 
face  of  characters  of  distinction.  .  .  .  Had  I  known 
the  true  posture  of  affairs,  no  consideration  would  have 
tempted  me  to  have  taken  an  active  part  in  this  scene. 
And  this  sentiment  is  universal.' 1 

The  letters  of  Washington  at  this  time  are  full  of  com- 
plaints of  the  quarrels  between  the  soldiers  of  the  diffe- 
rent provinces,  of  the  numerous  desertions  in  the  most 
critical  periods  of  the  campaign,  of  the  constant  acts  of  in- 
subordination, of  the  complete  inefficiency  of  the  militia.2 
The  defeat  at  Long  Island  had  totally  demoralised  them. 
*  The  militia,  instead  of  calling  forth  their  utmost  efforts 
to  a  brave  and  manly  opposition  in  order  to  repair  our 
losses,  are  dismayed,  intractable,  and  impatient  to  re- 
turn. Great  numbers  of  them  have  gone  off,  in  some 
instances  almost  by  whole  regiments,  by  half  ones,  and 
by  companies  at  a  time/  *  Their  want  of  discipline  and 
refusal  of  almost  every  kind  of  restraint/  '  their  humours 
and  intolerable  caprice,'  their  '  entire  disregard  of  that 
order  and  subordination  necessary  to  the  well-being  of 
an  army/  their  *  impatience  to  get  home/  and  their 

1  Stedman,  i.  206,  207.     See,          *  See  Washington's  Work*,  iv. 
too,  the  Life  of  Reed,  i.  243.  3,  7,  37,  89,  90,  105. 


ca.  xiii.  CONGRESS  AND  THE  STATES.  255 

*  abominable   desertions '   were   rapidly  infecting    the 
regular  continental  troops.1     On  one  occasion  a  body 
of  New  York  militia  tinder  Colonel  Hay  simply  refused 
to    obey   his   commands   or   to  do   duty,  saying   that 

*  General  Howe  had  promised  them  peace,  liberty,  and 
safety,  and  that  is  all  they  want/  2    There  was  so  little 
unity  of  action  between  the  Congress  and  the   local 
legislatures  that,  while  the  former  offered  a  bounty  of 
ten  dollars  to  those  who  would  enlist  for  a  year  in  the 
continental   service,  the  particular    States    sometimes 
offered  a  bounty  of  twenty  dollars  to  the  militia  who 
were  called  out  for  a  few  months,  and  it  was  in  conse- 
quence scarcely  possible  to  obtain  recruits  for  the  more 
serious  military  service.3    This  competition,  indeed,  be- 
tween the  Congress  and  the  separate  States  continued 
during  a  great  part  of  the  war ;  and  as  late  as  1779, 
when  Franklin  was  endeavouring  to  borrow  money  from 
Holland,  he  complained  bitterly  of  the  difficulties  he  en- 
countered through  the  rivalry  of  particular  States  which 
were  applying  at  the  same  time  for  loans  for  their  own 
purposes,  and  not  unfrequently  offering  higher  interest.4 

To  all  these  difficulties  which  beset  the  path  of 
Washington  must  be  added  the  widespread  disaffection 
to  the  American  cause  which  was  manifest  in  the  State 
of  New  York.  The  legal  legislature  of  the  province 
had  indeed  been  superseded  in  1775  by  a  Provincial 
Convention  elected  and  governed  by  the  revolutionists, 
and  it  passed  a  resolution  that  all  persons  residing  in 
the  State  of  New  York  who  adhered  to  the  King  and 
Great  Britain  '  should  be  deemed  guilty  of  treason  and 
should  suffer  death/ 5  *  A  fierce  mob  was  active  in 


1  Washington's  Works t  iv.  72,  of  Foreign  Affairs,  May  26,  1779. 

T3,  89,  94,  95,  157.  — American  Diplomatic   Corre- 

*  Ibid.  p.  162.  spondence,  iii.  88-91. 

8  Ibid.  i.  207  ;  iv.  73.  *  Earnsay,  i.  295. 
4  Franklin  to  the  Committee 


256       ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.      c*.  xui, 

hunting  down  suspected  Tories,  and  they  had  intro- 
duced the  brutal  New  England  punishment  of  carrying 
their  victims  astride  upon  rails ;  l  but  the  bulk  of  the 
property  of  New  York  belonged  to  loyalists,  and  they 
were  very  numerous,  both  among  the  middle  classes  of 
the  town  and  in  the  country  population.  Before  the 
arrival  of  the  English,  New  York  gaol  was  crowded 
with  suspected  loyalists,  and  among  them  were  many 
of  the  first  characters  in  the  town.  English  recruiting 
agents  penetrated  even  into  the  camp  of  Washington, 
and  a  plot  was  discovered  for  seizing  his  person.2  When 
Howe  landed  at  Staten  Island  he  was  warmly  welcomed 
by  the  inhabitants,  who  at  once  furnished  him  with  all 
that  he  required,  and  came  forward  in  numbers  to  take 
the  oath  of  allegiance.3  When  Washington  was  driven 
from  Long  Island,  almost  the  whole  population  came 
forward  gladly  to  testify  their  loyalty  to  the  Crown,4 
and  a  corps  of  several  hundred  loyalists  recruited  in 
the  province  was  serving  in  the  English  army.8  The 
Queen's  County,  which  comprehended  the  north  side  of 
Long  Island,  was  especially  noted  for  its  loyalty.  It 
refused  to  send  a  delegate  to  the  Continental  Congress 
or  the  Provincial  Convention,  and  at  the  end  of  the  war 
nearly  a  third  part  of  its  inhabitants  are  said  to  have 
emigrated  to  Nova  Scotia.6 

The  conduct   of  the  American   troops,  who  were 

1  Moore's  Diary,  i.  288.  cessions  as  have  been  required  ; 

*  Washington's  Works,  i.  181.  some  through  compulsion,  I  sup- 

8  Governor    Tryon    to    Lord  pose,    but    more   from    inclina- 

George  Germaine,  July  8,  1776.  tion.' — Washington  to  Trumbull, 

— Documents  relating  to  the  His-  Washington's     Works,    iv.    88. 

tory  of  New  York,  viii.  681.  Moore's  Journal,  i.  304. 

4  *  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  from  5  Documents  relating  to    the 

the  best  information   we   have  Hist,  of  New    York,  viii.  681, 

been  able  to  obtain,  the  people  687. 

of  Long  Island  have  since  our  6  Jones's  Hist,  of  New  York, 

evacuation  gone  generally  over  i.  107, 108. 
to  the  enemy  and  made  such  con- 


CH.  xni.  MISCONDUCT   OF  AMERICAN   TROOPS.  257 

almost  wholly  unaccustomed  to  discipline,  was,  as 
might  have  been  expected,  far  from  faultless.  '  The 
abandoned  and  profligate  part  of  our  army,'  wrote 
Washington,  *  lost  to  every  sense  of  honour  and  virtue, 
as  well  as  their  country's  good,  are  by  rapine  and 
plunder  spreading  ruin  and  terror  wherever  they  go, 
thereby  making  themselves  infinitely  more  to  be  dreaded 
than  the  common  enemy  they  are  come  to  oppose.' 
In  a  confidential  letter  to  the  President  of  the  Con- 
gress he  complained  that  except  for  one  or  two  of- 
fences the  utmost  penalty  he  was  empowered  to  inflict 
was  thirty-nine  lashes ;  that  these,  through  the  collusion 
of  the  officers  whose  duty  it  was  to  see  them  applied, 
were  sometimes  rather  *  a  matter  of  sport  than  punish- 
ment,' and  that  in  consequence  of  the  inadequacy  of  the 
penalty  '  a  practice  prevails  of  the  most  alarming  nature, 
which  will,  if  it  cannot  be  checked,  prove  fatal  both  to 
the  country  and  to  the  army.'  '  Under  the  idea  of  Tory 
property,  or  property  that  may  fall  into  the  hands  of  the 
enemy,  no  man  is  secure  in  his  effects  and  scarcely  in 
his  person.' l  American  soldiers  were  constantly  driving 
innocent  persons  out  of  their  homes  by  an  alarm  of  fire, 
or  by  actually  setting  their  houses  on  fire,  in  order  more 
easily  to  pi  under  the  contents,  and  all  attempts  to  check 
this  atrocious  practice  had  proved  abortive.  The  burn- 
ing of  New  York  was  generally  attributed  to  New  Eng- 
land incendiaries.  The  efforts  of  the  British  soldiers  to 
save  the  city  were  remembered  with  gratitude,  and, 
although  some  parts  of  the  province  of  New  York  still 
obeyed  the  Provincial  Congress,  there  is  little  doubt 
that  in  the  city  and  in  the  country  around  it  the  British 
were  looked  upon  not  as  conquerors  but  as  deliverers.3 

1  Washington's  Works,  iv.  118,  Germaine  from  New  York :  '  The 
119.  success    that   accompanied    my 

2  On  Feb.  11,  1777,  Governor  endeavour  to  unite  the  inhabit- 
Tryon    wrote    to    Lord    George  ants  of  this  city  by  an  oath  of 


258   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xin. 

Washington,  in  October  1776,  expressed  his  grave 
fear  that  in  case  of  any  unfavourable  turn  in  American 
affairs  the  enemy  might  recruit  soldiers  at  least  as  fast 
as  the  revolutionists.1  It  was  one  of  the  great  miscal- 
culations of  the  English  Government  that  they  enter- 
tained a  similar  expectation,  and  hoped  to  suppress  the 
rebellion  mainly  by  American  troops.  Attempts  were 
made  to  produce  a  rising  among  the  Scotch  emigrants 
in  Yirginia.  Officers  were  authorised  to  raise  provincial 
corps  for  the  service  of  the  King,  and  on  a  single 
occasion  equipments  were  sent  out  from  England  for  no 
less  than  8,000  provincial  troops.  In  the  course  of  the 
struggle  it  is,  no  doubt,  true  that  many  thousands  took 

allegiance    and    fidelity   to    his  have  assured  the   General  that 

Majesty  and  his  Government  has  should  he  remove  all  his  troops 

met  my  warmest  wishes ;    2,970  from  the  city,  there  would  not 

of  the  inhabitants  having  quali-  be  the  least  risk  of  a  revolt  from 

fied  thereto  in  my  presence the  inhabitants,  but  on  the  con- 

I  have  the  satisfaction  to  assure  trary  was  confident  large  num- 

your  lordship,  as  the  invitation  bers  would  take  a  share  in  the 

to  the  people  to  give  this  volun-  defence  of  the  town  against  the 

tary  testimony  of  their  loyalty  rebels.' — Documents  relating  to 

to  his  Majesty  and  his  Govern-  the    Colonial    History  of    New 

nient  was  made  even  without  a  York,  viii.  697. 

shadow  of  compulsion,   it  gave  '  Washington's  Works,iv.  132. 

me  peculiar  satisfaction  to  see  « One  unhappy  stroke  will  throw 

the  cheerfulness  with  which  they  a  powerful  weight  into  the  scale 

attended  the   summons.     I  be-  against    us,    enabling     General 

lieve  there  are  not  100  citizens  Howe  to  recruit  his  army  as  fast 

who  have  not  availed  themselves  as  we  shall  ours  ;  numbers  being 

of  the  opportunity  of  thus  testi-  so   disposed  and  many  actually 

lying  their  attachment  to   Go-  doing  so  already '  (p.  134).     In 

vernment.     The  mayor,  since  I  another  letter  he  reports  that  he 

went  through  several  wards,  has  has  learned  from  Long  Island 

attested  fifty  more  men  (and  is  that  '  the  enemy  are  recruiting  a 

daily  adding    to    the   number),  great  number  of  men  with  much 

which  makes  the  whole   sworn  success,'   and  expresses  his  fear 

in  the  city  3,020,  or  3,030,  which,  that  « in  a  little  time  they  will 

added  to  those  attested  on  Staten  levy  no  inconsiderable  army  of 

Island,  in  the  three  counties  on  our  own  people  '  (p.  127).     See, 

Long  Island,  and  in  Westchester  too,  on  the  American  loyalists, 

county  .  .  .  makes     the  whole  pp.    519-523,     and    Galloway's 

amount    to   5,600    men.  ...  I  Examination. 


«H.  xin.  PERSECUTION  OF  LOYALISTS. 

arms  for  the  King  either  in  isolated  risings  or  in  the 
regular  army,1  but  the  enlistments  were  much  fewer 
than  was  expected,  and  the  hope  that  America  would 
supply  the  main  materials  for  the  suppression  of  the  re- 
volt proved  wholly  chimerical.  One  of  the  first  acts  of 
the  Whig  party  in  every  colony  was  to  disarm  Tories, 
and  the  promptitude  and  energy  with  which  this 
measure  was  accomplished,  combined  with  the  un- 
fortunate issue  of  several  small  risings  in  the  Southern 
colonies,  paralysed  the  loyalists. 

Nor  was  it  surprising  that  they  showed  great  re- 
luctance and  hesitation.  That  strong  dislike  to  mili- 
tary life  which  pervaded  the  colonial  population  was 
nowhere  more  conspicuous  than  in  the  class  of  society 
in  which  loyal  sentiments  chiefly  prevailed,  and  the 
American  loyalists  risked  much  more  than  the  Ameri- 
can insurgents.  In  addition  to  the  Acts  punishing 
with  death,  banishment,  forfeiture  of  goods,  or  im- 
prisonment, those  who  assisted  the  English,  every  State 
passed  Acts  of  Attainder,  by  which  the  properties 
of  long  lists  of  citizens  who  were  mentioned  by  name 
were  confiscated.  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware,  following 
the  example  of  the  Irish  Jacobite  Parliament  of  1689, 
gave  the  attainted  person  the  option  of  appearing  to 
take  his  trial  for  treason  by  a  specified  date,  but  usually 
the  confiscations  were  absolute  and  unconditional.  In 
Connecticut  the  simple  offence  of  seeking  royal  pro- 
tection or  absenting  himself  from  his  home  and  country 
made  the  loyalist  liable  to  the  confiscation  of  all  his 
property.  In  New  York,  in  addition  to  an  Act  confis- 
cating all  the  goods  of  fifty-nine  persons,  three  of  whom 
were  women,  and  making  them  liable  to  the  penalty  of 
death  if  they  were  found  in  the  State,  a  heavy  tax  was 

1  Some  attempts  to  estimate      in  Sabine's  American  Loyalists, 
the    number    of    loyalists    who      58-61. 
actually  took  arms  will  be  found 


260   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xin. 

imposed  on  every  parent  who  had  a  loyalist  son.1  One 
of  the  first  acts  of  the  revolutionary  party  when  they 
occupied  Boston  was  to  confiscate  and  sell  all  property 
belonging  to  loyalists,  and  in  a  country  of  farmers  and 
yeomen  most  property  was  immovable.  The  loyalist 
exposed  himself  to  the  undying  animosity  of  a  large 
proportion  of  his  neighbours  ;  he  exposed  his  family  to 
those  savage  mobs  who  by  plunder  and  torture  were 
everywhere  supporting  the  Revolution,  and  he  was 
certain  to  incur  absolute  ruin  not  only  in  case  of  the 
defeat  of  the  English  cause,  but  even  in  case  of  the 
temporary  evacuation  of  the  district  in  which  his  pro- 
perty was  situated.  If  the  rebellion  collapsed,  it  would 
probably  do  so  speedily  through  the  want  of  men  and 
money  and  through  the  burden  of  the  sufferings  it  pro- 
duced, and  it  was  not  necessary  for  him  to  intervene 
and  to  excite  against  himself  the  hatred  of  those  who 
would  continue  to  be  his  neighbours.  If  the  rebellion 
was  prolonged,  an  American  resident  could  estimate 
more  truly  than  Englishmen  how  difficult  it  was  to 
subdue  an  enormous,  half-opened  country,  how  abso- 
lutely impossible  it  was  that  the  English  power  could 
be,  for  purposes  of  protection,  a  living  reality  over  more 
than  a  very  small  section  of  it.  Nor  were  the  moral  in- 
ducements to  enter  into  the  struggle  very  strong.  Thou- 
sands who  detested  the  policy  of  the  New  Englanders, 
and  who  longed  to  see  the  colonies  reconciled  to  England, 
reprobated  the  Stamp  Act  and  many  other  parts  of  the 
English  policy,  and  felt  in  no  way  bound  to  draw  the 
sword  against  their  countrymen,  or  to  add  new  fuel  to  a 
civil  war  which  they  had  done  their  utmost  to  avert. 

The  remaining  military  operations  of  1776  may  be 
told   in  a  few  words.     Washington,  after  his   defeat, 

1  See  a  long  list  of  these  Acts      Jones's  History  of  New  York,  ii. 
of  Attainder  in  Sabine's  American      269,  270. 
Loyalists,  pp.  78-81.    See,  too, 


CH.  xiii.  NEW  JERSEY  AND  TICONDEROGA.  261 

avoided  any  general  action,  though  several  slight  skir- 
mishes took  place.  The  whole  of  New  York  Island 
was  evacuated  with  the  exception  of  Fort  Washington, 
which,  by  the  advice  of  General  Greene,  and  contrary 
to  the  opinion  of  Washington,  it  was  determined  to  de- 
fend. The  British,  however,  took  it  by  storm  in  a 
single  day,  and  they  captured  in  it  2,700  American 
soldiers  and  a  large  quantity  of  artillery  and  military 
stores,  which  the  Americans  could  ill  spare.  Im- 
mediately after  this  brilliant  success,  a  powerful  de- 
tachment under  Lord  Cornwallis  crossed  the  Hudson, 
entered  New  Jersey,  to  which  Washington  had  fled,  and 
prepared  to  besiege  Fort  Lee  ;  but  the  garrison  hastily 
evacuated  it,  leaving  their  artillery  and  stores  in  the 
hands  of  the  British,  and  the  whole  province  open  to 
invasion.  The  Provincial  Convention  still  held  its 
meetings  in  distant  towns  of  the  Province  of  New  York, 
and  a  few  American  soldiers  under  Lee  continued  in  the 
province ;  but  the  main  operations  were  now  trans- 
ferred to  the  Jerseys. 

But  before  following  the  fortunes  of  the  war  in  that 
province,  it  is  necessary  to  enumerate  the  chief  opera- 
tions in  other  parts  of  the  colonies/  Schuyler,  who 
commanded  the  Northern  army,  which  had  just  eva- 
cuated Canada,  though  he  appears  to  have  been  a  cap- 
able officer,  was  disliked  by  the  New  England  troops, 
and  in  the  summer  of  1776  the  Congress,  without  as  yet 
absolutely  superseding  him,  gave  a  joint  command  to 
Gates,  who  was  more  popular  in  New  England.  The 
defeated  army  had  fallen  back  on  the  strong  fort  of 
Ticonderogas;  but  the  Americans  also  held  the  fort  of 
Crown  Point,  which  was  fifteen  miles  distant,  and  they 
had  constructed  with  great  energy  a  small  fleet,  which 
for  a  time  gave  them  the  command  of  Lake  Champlain. 
Gates  appointed  Benedict  Arnold  to  command  it ;  and 
this  general,  who  had  already  shown  himself  a  soldier  of 


262   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xin 

great  daring  and  capacity,  exhibited  the  same  qualities 
in  the  novel  functions  of  naval  commander.  The  English 
at  length  constructed  a  fleet  far  more  powerful  than 
that  of  the  Americans,  and  in  October  they  compelled 
the  Americans  to  evacuate  Crown  Point,  and  they 
totally  defeated  the  American  fleet.  Only  one  or  two 
vessels  were,  however,  captured,  for  Arnold  succeeded 
in  running  the  others  on  shore,  in  burning  them  before 
they  could  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  English,  and  in  con- 
ducting the  soldiers  who  manned  them  safely  to  Ticon- 
deroga.  The  winter  was  now  drawing  in,  and  General 
Carleton,  who  commanded  the  English,  made  no  at- 
tempt to  besiege  Ticonderoga,  but  fell  back  into  winter 
quarters  on  the  Canadian  frontier, 

In  June  1776  General  Clinton,  at  the  head  of  some 
troops  which  had  lately  arrived  from  Ireland,  and  sup- 
ported by  a  fleet  under  Sir  Peter  Parker,  attempted  to 
capture  Charleston,  which  was  the  wealthiest  and  most 
important  town  in  the  southern  colonies.  Had  he  suc- 
ceeded, he  would  have  stopped  one  of  the  chief  sources 
of  military  preparation  in  the  South,  and  would  have 
probably  called  into  activity  the  strong  loyalist  party 
which  had  already  shown  itself  in  South  Carolina. 
Charleston  had,  however,  recently  been  protected  by  a 
very  strong  fortification  on  Sullivan's  Island,  and  it  was 
skilfully  defended  by  General  Lee,  the  most  experienced 
of  all  the  soldiers  in  the  service  of  the  revolution.  In  at- 
tacking the  fort,  three  frigates  ran  aground,  and  although 
two  were  saved,  it  was  found  necessary  to  burn  the  third  ; 
and  after  several  attempts  the  difficulties  of  the  enter- 
prise were  found  to  be  so  great  that  it  was  abandoned. 
In  July,  Parker  and  Clinton  sailed  for  New  York. 

The  successful  defence  of  Charleston  was  a  great  en- 
couragement to  the  revolution  in  the  Southern  colonies, 
and  for  two  and  a  half  years  no  new  attempt  was  made 
to  re-establish  in  those  quarters  the  dominion  of  England, 


CH.  XTII.  RHODE   ISLAND — INDIAN   WAR.  263 

In  December,  however,  the  sarne  commanders  who  had 
made  the  abortive  attempt  upon  Charleston  descended 
upon  Rhode  Island,  and  occupied  it  without  resistance. 
One  of  the  provinces  most  hostile  to  British  rule 
was  thus  effectually  curbed,  considerable  impediments 
were  thrown  in  the  way  of  the  naval  preparations  of  the 
enemy,  and  a  good  harbour  was  secured  for  the  British ; 
but  military  critics  have  doubted,  or  more  than  doubted, 
whether  these  advantages  justified  the  British  com- 
mander in  detaining  at  least  6,000  soldiers  for  nearly 
three  years  inactive  in  the  island. 

The  employment  of  Indians  in  the  war  was  now 
on  both  sides  undisguised.  I  have  related  in  a  former 
chapter  what  appears  to  me  to  be  the  true  history  of  its 
first  stages,  and  in  the  Canadian  campaign  the  Indians 
gave  great  assistance  to  the  English.  Actuated,  accord- 
ing to  the  English  view,  by  a  strong  personal  attach- 
ment to  Sir  William  Johnson  and  Colonel  Guy  Johnson, 
and  by  an  earnest  loyalty  to  the  Crown,  which  had  so 
often  protected  them  against  the  encroachments  of  the 
colonists — according  to  the  American  view  by  a  mere 
selfish  desire  to  support  the  side  on  which  there  was 
most  to  gain  and  least  to  lose,1  the  Indians  along  the 
Canadian  frontier  remained  steadily  loyal ;  and  it  is  but 
justice  to  add  that  their  fidelity  was  never  more  con- 

1  Compare  the  letters  of  Col.  which  put  it  out  of  the  power  of 

Guy  Johnson  in  the  Documents  the   Americans    to    supply    the 

relating  to  the  Colonial  History  Indians  with  the  articles  of  coru- 

of  New  York,  vol.  viii.  (especially  merce  they  chiefly  valued.  There 

pp.   656,   657),  and   a   note   in  is   a  striking  statement  of  the 

Washington's    Works,    iii.    407.  unwavering  fidelity  of  the   Mo* 

Ramsay  (History  of  the  American  hawks  to  England  during  the  warv 

Revolution,  ii.  138)  attributes  the  of  the  great  sufferings  they  en. 

fidelity  of  the  Canadian  Indians  dured  for  her,  and  of  the  un- 

chiefly  to  the  impression  the  ex-  grateful  way  in  which  they  were 

pulsion  of  the  French  had  made  abandoned  at  the  peace,  in  Jones'a 

upon  their  minds,  and  to  the  non-  History  of  New  York,  i.  75,  76. 
Importation  agreement  of  1774, 

19 


264       ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     CH.  ami, 

spicuous  than  in  the  first  period  of  the  campaign,  when 
it  appeared  as  if  the  forces  of  Montgomery  and  Arnold 
would  have  carried  everything  before  them.  In  May 
1776  the  Congress  resolved  that  *  it  is  highly  expedient 
to  engage  the  Indians  in  the  service  of  the  United 
Colonies;'  in  the  following  month  they  authorised 
General  Schuyler  to  raise  2,000  Indians  for  his  service 
in  Canada,  and  Washington  to  employ  Indians  to  any 
extent  he  thought  useful ;  and  they  at  the  same  time 
promised  a  reward  to  all  Indians  who  took  English 
officers  or  soldiers  prisoners.1  Schuyler  found  it  impos- 
sible to  shake  the  allegiance  of  the  Canadian  Indians ; 
but  in  July  1776  Washington  wrote  an  urgent  letter  to 
the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  begging  them  to 
enlist  500  or  600  Indians  for  his  own  army.2  It  is  a 
remarkable  fact,  however,  that  in  nearly  every  period  of 
the  struggle,  and  in  every  part  of  the  States,  the  great 
majority  of  the  Indians,  if  they  took  part  in  the  war, 
ranged  themselves  on  the  side  of  the  Crown,  and  Eng- 
land obtained  in  consequence  much  the  larger  share  both 
of  the  benefit  and  of  the  discredit  of  their  assistance.3 

The  English  Government  had  certainly  no  desire 
to  instigate  or  encourage  acts  of  atrocity,  and  they 
strongly  exhorted  the  Indians  to  abstain  from  such 
acts ;  but  at  the  same  time  they  knew  that  it  was 
often  wholly  impossible  to  restrain  them  ;  they  de- 
liberately calculated  upon  the  terrors  of  Indian  war- 
fare as  a  method  of  coercion ;  they  were  not  content 
with  employing  Indians  in  their  own  armies,  and  under 
the  supervision  of  their  own  officers,  but  urged  them  to 
independent  attacks  against  the  colonists,  and  there 
were  men  in  the  English  service  who  would  have  readily 


1  Secret  Journals  of  Congress,      430,  431,  460.    See,  too,  f.  273, 
May  25,  June  17,  July  8,  1776.         274. 
*  Washington's      Works,     iii.          8  Bamsay,  ii.  139. 


CR.   XIII. 


INDIAN   WAR. 


265 


given  them  uncontrolled  licence  against  the  enemy.1 
Shortly  before  the  attack  upon  Charleston,  a  very  for- 
midable conspiracy  of  loyalists  and  Indians  to  invade 
Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  was  discovered.  Mr.  Stuart, 
who  had  for  a  long  time  directed  the  Indian  affairs  of 
the  Southern  colonies,  was  the  leading  agent  in  organ- 
ising it ;  and  it  was  intended  to  bring  the  Creeks  and 


1  A  disgraceful  affair  occurred 
in  Canada  in  the  summer  of  1776, 
when  several  American  prisoners 
were  killed  and  others  plundered 
by  Indians  after  capitulation,  and 
the  English  officer  declared  his 
inability  to  control  the  savages. 
(Washington's  Works,  iv.  1,  2.) 
Feb.  15,  1777,  Col.  Guy  Johnson 
wrote  to  Lord  George  Ger- 
maine :  '  The  terror  of  their 
name  without  any  acts  of  savage 
cruelty  will  tend  much  to  the 
speedy  termination  of  the  rebel- 
lion.'— Documents  relating  to  the 
Colonial  History  of  Ntw  York, 
viii.  699.  On  April  21,  1777, 
Governor  Tryon  wrote  to  Secre- 
tary Knox:  'I  am  exactly  of 
opinion  with  Colonel  La  [Corne] 
St.  Luc,  who  says :  "  II  faut 
lacher  les  sauvages  contre  les 
miserables  rebels,  pour  imposer 
de  terreur  sur  les  frontiers.  II 
dit  de  plus  (mais  un  peu  trop 
pour  moi),  qu'il  faut  brutalizer 
les  affaires ;  assurement  il  est 
bien  enragee  de  la  mauvais  traite- 
ment  qu'il  a  recu  de  les  aveugles 
peuples'"  (sic).  Ibid.  p.  707. 
On  March  12,  1778,  Col.  Johnson 
wrote  to  Lord  George  Germaine : 
•  It  is  well  known,  my  lord,  that 
the  colonies  solicited  the  Indians 
early  in  1775;  that  they  pro- 
posed to  make  me  prisoner,  that 
they  carried  some  Indians  then 


to  their  camp  near  Boston,  as 
they  did  others  since,  who  were 
taken  in  the  battle  on  Long 
Island ;  that  the  tomahawk  which 
is  so  much  talked  of  is  seldom 
used  but  to  smoak  through  or  to 
cut  wood  with,  and  that  they  are 
very  rarely  guilty  of  any  cruelty 
more  than  scalping  the  dead,  in 
which  article  even  they  may  be 
restrained.  It  is  also  certain  that 
no  objection  was  made  to  them 
formerly ;  that  the  King's  instruc- 
tions of  1754  to  General  Brad- 
dock,  and  many  since,  direct  their 
being  employed,  while  some  of  the 
American  colonies  went  further 
by  fixing  a  price  for  scalps. 
Surely  foreign  enemies  have  an 
equal  claim  to  humanity  with 
others.  ...  I  am  persuaded  .... 
that  I  can  restrain  the  Indians 
from  acts  of  savage  cruelty.'  Ibid, 
pp.  740,  741.  See,  too,  on  this 
subject,  the  note  in  Washington's 
Works,  v.  274-276.  Governor 
Pownall,  who  was  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  Indian  affairs,  said 
'  the  idea  of  an  Indian  neutrality 
is  nonsense — delusive,  dangerous 
nonsense.  If  both  we  and  the 
Americans  were  agreed  to  observe 
a  strict  neutrality  in  not  employ, 
ing  them,  they  would  then  plun- 
der and  scalp  both  parties  i 
criminately.' 


206   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  itm, 

Cherokees,  who  inhabited  lands  to  the  west  of  the 
Carolinas  and  of  Georgia,  into  the  field,  and  to  assist 
them  by  an  expedition  of  English  soldiers  and  by  a 
great  loyalist  rising.  The  project  was  paralysed  by  its 
premature  disclosure,  and  the  great  body  of  Indians  in 
these  parts  remained  passive ;  but  the  Cherokees  took 
up  arms,  and  waged  a  very  savage  war  in  the  back 
settlements  of  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas.  The  Southern 
colonists,  however,  soon  collected  an  army  for  their 
defence,  and  not  only  cleared  their  own  territory,  but 
crossed  the  Alleghanies,  traversed  the  Indian  settle- 
ments, burnt  the  villages,  destroyed  the  crops,  and  soon 
compelled  the  savages  to  sue  for  peace,  and  to  cede  a 
great  part  of  their  land  to  South  Carolina.  It  was 
noticed  that  the  barbarities  practised  by  the  Indians  in 
this  campaign  had  a  great  effect  in  repressing  the 
loyalist  sentiment  in  the  Southern  colonies.1 

Another  subject  which  greatly  occupied  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Americans  was  the  indispensable  necessity 
of  creating  a  navy  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  their 
commerce  and  injuring  that  of  the  enemy.  The  Ameri- 
cans have  at'  all  times  shown  a  remarkable  aptitude  for 
the  seafaring  life,  and  they  did  not  wait  for  the  De- 
claration of  Independence  to  take  measures  for  the  con- 
struction of  an  independent  navy.  In  the  last  three 
months  of  1775  Congress  ordered  seventeen  cruisers, 
varying  from  ten  to  thirty-six  guns,  to  be  built.  In 
February  1776  the  first  American  squadron,  consisting 
of  eight  small  ships — the  largest  carrying  twenty-four 
guns — sailed  under  Commander  Hopkins  from  Dela- 
ware Bay,  and  in  October  1776  twenty-six  American 
vessels  were  either  built  or  building.2  A  few"  larger 
vessels  were  afterwards  constructed  in  France,  but  the 


1  Annual  Register,  1777, p.  122.      of  the  United  States,  i.  76,  77, 
1  Cooper's  History  of  the  Navy      89,  90,  101,  102. 


CH.  xiii.  PRIVATEERING.  267 

American  navy  appears  to  have  been  almost  wholly 
manned  by  natives,  and  in  this  respect  it  furnished  a 
great  contrast  to  the  army,  in  which  the  foreign  element 
was  very  prominent.  The  popularity,  however,  of  the 
regular  naval  force  could  never  compete  with  that  of 
privateering,  which  was  soon  practised  from  the  New 
England  and  Pennsylvanian  coasts  on  a  scale  and  with 
a  daring  and  success  very  rarely  equalled.  The  zest 
with  which  the  Americans  threw  themselves  into  this 
lucrative  form  of  enterprise  is  a  curious  contrast  to 
their  extreme  reluctance  to  take  up  arms  in  the  field. 
*  Thousands  of  schemes  of  privateering,'  wrote  John 
Adams  in  August  1776,  '  are  afloat  in  American  imagi- 
nations.'1 In  the  beginning  of  the  war  this  kind  of 
enterprise  was  especially  successful,  for  a  swarm  of 
privateers  were  afloat  before  the  English  appear  to  have 
had  the  smallest  suspicion  of  their  danger.  The  names 
are  preserved  of  no  less  than  sixteen  privateers  belong- 
ing to  Rhode  Island  alone,  which  were  on  the  sea  in 
1776 ; 2  and  it  is  probable  that  these  form  but  a  small 
fraction  of  the  total  number.  At  the  end  of  1776 
250  West  Indiamen  had  been  captured,8  the  injury 
already  done  to  the  West  India  trade  was  estimated 
in  England  at  1,800,OOOZ.,  and  the  rate  of  insurance 
had  risen  to  28  per  cent.,  which  was  higher  than  at 
any  period  in  the  last  war  with  France  and  Spain.4 

The  leading  merchants  speculated  largely  in  priva- 
teers, and  it  was  noticed  that  '  the  great  profit  of 
privateering  was  an  irresistible  temptation  to  sea- 
men,'5 and  a  formidable  obstacle  to  enlistment  in  the 


1  Adams's  Familiar  Letters,  p.  4  Ibid.  p.  262.     See,  too,  Ame- 
208.     See,  too,  pp.  220,  226,  230.  rican  Remembrancer,  1776,  part 

2  Arnold's   History  of  Rhode  ii.  p.  267. 

Island,  ii.  386.  5  American  Diplomatic  Corre- 

8  American  Diplomatic  Corre-  spondence,  ii.  93. 
spondence,  i.  248. 


2G8        ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY,     en.  X:IT. 

army.  At  the  end  of  1776,  Eobert  Morris,  in  describing 
the  gloomy  prospects  of  the  revolution,  complained  that- 
'  in  the  Eastern  States  they  are  so  intent  upon  priva- 
teering that  they  mind  little  else ; l  but  when  Chastellux 
visited  Philadelphia  a  few  years  later,  he  found  this 
distinguished  patriot  and  merchant  himself  so  occupied 
with  the  trade  that  he  regarded  a  week  as  a  calamitous 
one  in  which  no  prize  was  brought  in  by  his  cruisers, 
and  his  fortune  had  risen  in  the  most  disastrous  period 
of  the  American  war  to  between  300,000/.  and _  400,0001* 
It  was  found  impossible  to  man  the  navy  without  lay- 
ing an  embargo  on  the  privateers,  and  in  1776  the 
Assembly  of  Ehode  Island  proposed  to  the  other  States 
a  general  embargo  until  the  quotas  of  enlistments  re- 
quired by  the  Congress  for  the  army  had  in  each  State 
been  filled.3  It  may  be  questioned,  however,  whether 
American  enterprise  could  have  been  on  the  whole  more 
profitably  employed,  for  successful  privateering  brought 
great  wealth  into  the  country,  impoverished  the  enemy, 
and  added  very  largely  to  the  popularity  of  the  war. 

It  needed,  indeed,  all  the  popularity  that  could  be 
derived  from  this  source,  for  the  latter  months  of  1776 
form  one  of  the  darkest  periods  in  the  whole  struggle. 
The  army  of  Washington  had  dwindled  to  3,000  and 
even  to  2,700  effective  men.  Except  two  companies 
of  artillery  belonging  to  the  State  of  New  York  that 
were  engaged  for  the  war,  the  whole  of  the  continental 


1  American  Diplomatic  Corre-  the  manner  in  which  (without 

spondence,  i.  243.  actual  dishonesty)  he  employed 

f  Chastellux,  Travels  in  North  his  position  of  Financier-General 

America,  i.  199-201.    According  to  the  colonies,  to  subserve  his 

to  a  note,  however,  appended  to  private  interests.     See,  too,  Ban 

the  English  translation  of  this  croft's  Hist,  of  the  United  States, 

book,  a  large  part  of  the  great  x.  566,  567. 
fortune  of   Morris  was   due   to          3  Arnold's  Hist,  of  Rhode  I»- 

other  causes,  and  especially  to  land,  ii.  388,  389. 


CH.  xiii.  STATE   OF   THE   ARMY — LEE.  269 

troops  had  only  been  enlisted  for  a  year,  and  when 
their  time  of  service  expired  in  November  and  Decem- 
ber, it  appeared  as  if  none  of  them  would  consent  to 
re-enlist  or  to  postpone  their  departure.  In  the  face 
of  an  enemy  of  overwhelming  numbers,  in  the  very 
agonies  of  a  struggle  upon  which  the  whole  future  of 
the  contest  depended,  company  after  company  came  for- 
ward claiming  instant  dismissal.  Fourteen  days  after 
the  capture  of  Fort  Washington  had  deprived  the  Ameri- 
cans of  nearly  3,000  soldiers,  a  large  division  of  the 
army  took  this  course.  Every  hope  of  success  seemed 
fading  away.  An  urgent  despatch  was  sent  to  Gates, 
who  commanded  the  remains  of  the  army  which  had 
invaded  Canada,  to  send  assistance  from  Ticonderoga. 
Unfortunately  two  of  the  regiments  which  he  sent  were 
from  New  Jersey,  their  time  of  service  had  expired,  and 
as  soon  as  they  found  themselves  in  their  native  State 
they  disbanded  to  a  man.1 

General  Lee  had  been  left  with  some  troops  at  the 
east  side  of  Hudson  River,  and  Washington  now  urg- 
ently summoned  him  to  his  assistance.  Lee  had  served 
with  much  distinction  in  the  English  army  in  America 
during  the  last  war,  and  his  fierce  energy  had  gained  for 
him  among  the  Indians  the  title  of  '  the  spirit  that  never 
sleeps.' '  He  returned  to  England  after  the  capture  of 
Canada,  served  in  1762  in  Portugal  with  the  auxiliary 
forces  against  the  Spaniards,  and  performed  at  least  one 
brilliant  exploit  in  the  capture  of  a  Spanish  camp  near 
Villa  Yelha,  on  the  Tagus.  Having,  however,  quarrelled 
with  his  superiors,  and  being  disappointed  in  his  hopea 
of  promotion,  he  passed  into  the  Polish  service,  where 
he  became  a  major-general.  He  afterwards  spent  some 
years  in  travelling,  fought  several  desperate  duels,  and 
was  everywhere  noted  for  his  violent  and  turbulent 

1  Bamsay,  i.  312.    Hildreth,  iii.  159. 


270    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  zm. 

character ;  but  he  was  also  an  accomplished  linguist  and 
a  man  of  some  literary  talent,  and  he  was  one  of  the 
many  persons  to  whom  the  letters  of  Junius  were  as- 
cribed. He  travelled  in  America  in  an  early  stage  of 
the  colonial  dispute,  and  appears  to  have  conceived  a 
genuine  enthusiasm  for  the  American  cause ;  but  he  was 
even  more  of  an  adventurer  than  an  enthusiast,  and  was 
much  disappointed  at  being  placed  in  the  American  army 
not  only  below  Washington,  but  also  below  Ward, — '  a 
fat  old  gentleman,'  as  he  complained,  '  who  had  been  a 
popular  churchwarden,  but  had  no  acquaintance  what- 
ever with  military  affairs/  General  Ward  retired  shortly 
after  the  recovery  of  Boston,  and  the  star  of  Lee  seemed 
for  a  time  rising  very  high.  His  military  experience  was 
eminently  useful  in  organising  the  American  army.  His 
defence  of  Charleston  against  the  fleet  of  Sir  Peter  Parker 
in  the  summer  of  1776  had  been  skilful  and  successful ; 
and  having  afterwards  been  summoned  to  the  north,  his 
advice  is  said  to  have  decided  the  evacuation  of  New 
York  Island,  which  probably  saved  the  American  army 
from  capture. 

His  self-willed,  impracticable,  and  insubordinate 
temper,  however,  soon  became  apparent ;  he  was  ex- 
tremely jealous  of  Washington,  whose  ability  he  appears 
to  have  greatly  underrated,  and  after  the  capture  of 
Fort  Washington  he  thought  the  situation  nearly 
hopeless.  *  Between  ourselves/  he  wrote  to  his  friend 
Gates, '  a  certain  great  man  is  most  damnably  deficient. 
He  has  thrown  me  into  a  situation  where  I  have  my 
choice  of  difficulties.  If  I  stay  in  this  province  I  risk 
myself  and  army,  and  if  I  do  not  stay,  the  province  is 
lost  for  ever.  I  have  neither  guides,  cavalry,  medicines, 
money,  shoes,  nor  stockings.  I  must  act  with  the 
greatest  circumspection.  Tories  are  in  my  front,  rear, 
and  on  my  flanks.  The  mass  of  the  people  is  strangely 
contaminated.  In  short,  unless  something  which  I  do 


CH.  xni.  MILITARY   EVENTS,    DECEMBER    1776.  271 

not  expect  turns  up,  we  are  lost.  Our  councils  have 
been  weak  to  the  last  degree.'  For  some  time  lie  posi- 
tively disobeyed  the  summons  of  his  chief,  hoping  to 
strike  some  independent  blow  near  New  York.  At  length, 
slowly  and  reluctantly,  he  entered  New  Jersey;  but 
having  on  December  1 3  gone  some  way  from  his  army  to 
reconnoitre,  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  British  party  and 
was  captured.  To  the  officers  who  took  him  he  expressed 
his  disgust  at  *  the  rascality  of  his  troops,'  his  disappoint- 
ment at  the  deep  division  of  opinion  in  America,  and  his 
conviction  that  '  the  game  was  nearly  at  an  end.' l 

The  incident  struck  terror  into  the  American  army 
at  a  time  when  no  additional  discouragement  was  needed. 
Washington,  closely  pursued  by  a  greatly  superior  force 
under  Lord  Cornwallis,  retreated  successively  to  Newark, 
to  Brunswick,  to  Princeton,  to  Trenton,  and  to  the  Penn- 
sylvanian  side  of  the  Delaware.  Seldom  has  a  com- 
mander found  himself  in  a  more  deplorable  position,  for 
in  New  Jersey  and  in  Pennsylvania,  as  well  as  in  New 
York,  the  bulk  of  the  people  were  either  utterly  indif- 
ferent or  positively  hostile  to  his  cause.  '  The  want  of 
exertion,'  he  wrote  ou  December  5,  *  in  the  principal 
gentlemen  of  the  country,  or  a  fatal  supineness  and  in- 
sensibility of  dacger  .  .  .  have  been  the  causes  of  our 
late  disgraces.'  The  militia  he  described  as  *  a  destruc- 
tive, expensive,  and  disorderly  mob.' 2  On  the  12th  he 
wrote  that,  a  great  part  of  the  continental  troops  having 
insisted  on  abandoning  him,  he  had  '  hoped  to  receive  a 
reinforcement  from  the  militia  of  the  State  of  New  Jersey 
sufficient  to  check  the  further  progress  of  the  enemy,' 
but  had  been  *  cruelly  disappointed.'  '  The  inhabitants 

1  For  the   fullest   particulars  1860).     The  life  and  vrritings  of 

about  this  remarkable  man  see  Lee  were  published  in  one  volume 

an  interesting  monograph  called  in  1794. 

The  Treason  of  Charles  Lee.  by          2  Washington's  Works t  iv.  202, 

George  H.   Moore    (New    York,  203. 


ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xm, 

of  this  State,  either  from  fear  or  disaffection,  almost  to 
a  man  refused  to  turn  out.' l  In  Pennsylvania,  things 
were  a  little,  but  only  a  little,  better.  About  1,500  men 
of  the  militia  of  Philadelphia  marched  to  Trenton,  '  but 
the  remainder  of  the  province  continues  in  a  state  of 
supineness,  nor  do  I  see  any  likelihood  of  their  stirring 
to  save  their  own  capital,  which  is  undoubtedly  General 
Howe's  great  object.' 2 

4  With  a  handful  of  men,'  he  wrote  a  few  days  later, 
'  compared  to  the  enemy's  force,  we  have  been  pushed 
through  the  Jerseys  without  being  able  to  make  the 
smallest  opposition  and  compelled  to  pass  the  Dela- 
ware.' 3  *  Instead  of  giving  any  assistance  in  repelling 
the  enemy,  the  militia  have  not  only  refused  to  obey 
your  general  summons  and  that  of  their  commanding 
officers,  but,  I  am  told,  exult  at  the  approach  of  the 
enemy  and  on  our  late  misfortunes.' 4  '  I  found  ...  no 
disposition  in  the  inhabitants  to  afford  the  least  aid.' 
*  We  are  in  a  very  disaffected  part  of  the  province,  and 
between  you  and  me  I  think  our  affairs  are  in  a  very  bad 
condition ;  not  so  much  from  the  apprehension  of  General 
Howe's  army  as  from  the  defection  of  New  York,  the 
Jerseys,  and  Pennsylvania.  In  short,  the  conduct  of 
the  Jerseys  has  been  most  infamous.  Instead  of  turning 
out  to  defend  their  country  and  affording  aid  to  our 
army,  they  are  making  their  submission  as  fast  as  they 
can.  If  the  Jerseys  had  given  us  any  support  we  might 
have  made  a  stand  at  Hackinsac,  and,  after  that,  at 
Brunswick ;  but  the  few  militia  that  were  in  arms  dis- 
banded themselves  and  left  the  poor  remains  of  our  army 
to  make  the  best  we  could  of  it.'  *  If  every  nerve  is  not 
strained  to  recruit  the  new  army  with  all  possible  expe- 
dition I  think  the  game  is  pretty  nearly  up.'  '  The  enemy 

1  Washington's  TForfcs,iv.212.  •  Ibid.  p.  215. 

2  Ibid.  p.  213.  «  Ibid.  p.  223. 


CH.  xin.  DECEMBER    1776.  273 

are  daily  gathering  strength  from  the  disaffected/  *  I 
have  no  doubt  but  General  Howe  will  still  make  an 
attempt  upon  Philadelphia  this  winter.  I  see  nothing 
to  oppose  him  a  fortnight  hence.' l 

Clothes,  shoes,  cannon,  entrenching  tools  were 
imperatively  needed.  A  great  part  of  the  military 
stores  of  the  Revolution  had  been  captured  at  Fort 
Washington.  Even  small  arms  were  beginning  to 
fail.  "The  consumption  and  waste  of  these,'  wrote 
Washington,  '  this  year  have  been  great.  Militia  and 
flying-camp  men  coming  in  without  them  were  obliged 
to  be  furnished  or  become  useless.  Many  of  these 
threw  their  arms  away ;  some  lost  them  ;  whilst  others 
deserted  and  took  them  away.'2  And  in  the  midst 
of  all  this  distress  there  was  incessant  jealousy  and 
recrimination,  dishonesty  and  corruption  ;  *  the  different 
States,  without  regard  to  the  qualifications  of  an  officer, 
quarrelling  about  the  appointments  and  nominating  such 
as  are  not  fit  to  be  shoeblacks,  from  the  local  attach- 
ments of  this  or  that  member  of  the  Assembly  ; '  3  '  the 
regimental  surgeons,  many  of  whom  are  very  great 
rascals,  countenancing  the  men  in  sham  complaints  to 
exempt  them  from  duty,  often  receiving  bribes  to  certify 
indispositions  with  a  view  to  procure  discharges  or  fur- 
loughs,' quarrelling  incessantly  around  the  beds  of  the 
sick,  and  <  in  numberless  instances  '  drawing  '  for  medi- 
cines and  stores  in  the  most  profuse  and  extravagant 
manner  for  private  purposes  ; ' 4  the  troops,  in  fine,  so 
full  *  of  local  attachments  and  distinctions  of  country,' 
that  after  vainly  trying  to  unite  them  by  '  denominating 


1  Washington's      Works,     iv.  of  his  regiment  at  the  American 

230,  231,  234.  camp  at  Harlem  for  selling  the 

Ibid.  p.  238.  soldiers    certificates    that    they 

3  Ibid.  p.  184.  were  unfit  for  duty,  at  the  rate 

4  Ibid.  pp.  116,  117.   One  regi-  of  8d.  a  man. — Moore's  Journal. 
mental  doctor  was  drummed  out  i.  315. 


274   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  en.  X.H. 

the  whole  by  the  greater  name  of  American,'  Washington 
acknowledged  that  the  task  was  an  impossible  one,  and 
that  the  best  way  of  governing  his  army  was  by  stirring 
the  emulation  of  the  contingents  of  the  different  States.1 
It  seemed  at  this  time  not  only  probable  but  al- 
most certain  that  the  American  Revolution  would  have 
collapsed ;  and  if  it  had  done  so,  it  is  strange  to  think 
how  completely  the  commonplaces  of  history  would 
have  been  changed,  and  how  widely  different  would 
now  have  been  the  popular  estimate  of  the  rival  actors 
both  in  England  and  in  America.  In  the  course  of  a 
few  months  the  English  had  driven  the  Americans  from 
Canada  and  from  New  York.  They  had  taken  posses- 
sion of  Ehode  Island  without  opposition.  They  had 
overrun  the  whole  of  the  Jerseys,  and  nothing  but  the 
Delaware  saved  Philadelphia  from  capture.  It  is  almost 
certain  that  with  the  most  ordinary  vigilance  and  enter- 
prise Howe  could  have  compelled  the  chief  American 
army  to  surrender  in  Long  Island,  and  that  if  he  had 
at  once  pursued  Washington  across  the  Delaware, 
Philadelphia  would  have  immediately  fallen  into  his 
hands.  In  either  of  these  cases  the  American  Revolu- 
tion would  probably  have  ended  in  1776.  In  all  the 
provinces  which  had  been  conquered,  except  Rhode 
Island,  the  feelings  of  the  people  had  been  at  least  as 
favourable  to  the  British  as  to  the  revolutionists,  and 
the  more  closely  the  correspondence  of  the  time  is 
examined  the  more  evident  it  will  appear  that,  in  the 
middle  colonies  at  least,  those  who  really  desired  to 
throw  off  the  English  rule  were  a  small  and  not  very 
respectable  minority.  The  great  mass  were  indifferent, 
half-hearted,  engrossed  with  their  private  interests  or 
occupations,  prepared  to  risk  nothing  till  they  could 
clearly  foresee  the  issue  of  the  contest. 


Washington's  Works,  iv.  236. 


CH.  xin.  AMERICAN  APATHY.  275 

In  almost  every  part  of  the  States — even  in  New  Eng- 
land itself — there  were  large  bodies  of  devoted  loyalists.1 
The  different  States  still  regarded  themelves  as  different 
countries,  and  one  of  the  sentiments  that  most  strongly 
pervaded  the  majority  of  them  was  dislike  of  the  New 
Eiiglanders.2  Washington,  in  New  Jersey,  issued  a 
stringent  proclamation  ordering  the  inhabitants  along 
the  march  of  the  English  to  destroy  all  hay  and  corn 
which  they  could  not  remove,  but  the  order  was  nearly 
universally  disobeyed,  and  Howe  never  at  this  time 
found  the  smallest  difficulty  in  obtaining  all  necessary 
supplies.3  Had  the  Americans  as  a  whole  ever  looked 
upon  the  English  as  the  Dutch  looked  upon  the  Spaniards, 
and  as  the  Poles  look  upon  the  Eussians,  had  they  mani- 
fested in  the  struggle  of  the  revolution  but  a  tenth  part 
of  the  earnestness,  the  self-sacrifice,  the  enthusiasm 
which  they  displayed  on  both  sides  in  the  war  of  Seces- 
sion, Howe  would  at  least  have  been  enormously  out- 
numbered. But  during  the  whole  of  the  campaign  in 
New  Jersey  the  army  of  Washington  was  far  inferior  in 
numbers  to  that  which  was  opposed  to  him,  and  it  was 
so  ragged,  inexperienced,  and  badly  armed  that  it  had 
rather  the  appearance  of  a  mob  than  of  an  army.  Howe 
issued  a  proclamation  offering  full  pardon  to  all  rebels 
who  appeared  before  the  proper  authorities  within  sixty 
days  and  subscribed  a  declaration  of  allegiance,  and 
great  multitudes,  including  most  of  the  chief  persons  in 

1  Thus  Governor  Tryon  writes  can  give  the  more  credit  to  from 

to  Lord  G.  Germaine,  Dec.  31,  the  number  of  Connecticut  men 

1776,  giving  the  report  of  two  of  that  enlist  in  the  provincial  corps 

his  Majesty's  Council  who  had  now  raising.' — Documents  relat- 

just  returned  from  Connecticut :  ing  to  the   Colonial  History  of 

4  They  tell  me,  from  the  intelli-  New  York,  viii.  694. 

gence  they  had  opportunities  to  2  Adams's  TFbrfcs,  iii.  87.    Hil- 

collect,  they  are  positive  a  ma-  dreth,  iii.  147. 

jorityof  the  inhabitants  west  of  8  Galloway's 

Connecticut  river  are  firm  friends  17,  18. 
to  Government.    This  report  I 


276   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CK.  mi, 

the  State,  gladly  availed  themselves  of  it.  At  Phila- 
delphia itself  there  was  so  much  disaffection  that  Wash- 
ington was  obliged  to  detach  a  portion  of  his  shrunken 
army  for  the  purpose  of  intimidating  those  who  were 
opposing  all  defensive  works  against  the  British,  and 
he  was  in  almost  daily  expectation  that  the  British 
would  make  an  attempt  to  pass  the  Delaware,  and  only 
too  certain  that  if  they  succeeded  in  doing  so,  Phila- 
delphia would  be  at  their  mercy. 

The  Congress  regarded  the  ^antnre  of  the  town  as  'so 
imminent  that  it  fled  precipitately  to  Baltimore.  Pro- 
bably the  last  member  who  remained  in  Philadelphia 
was  Robert  Morris,  afterwards  well  known  for  the  great 
ability  he  displayed  in  organising  the  finances  of  the 
Union,  and  he  wrote  on  December  21,  1776,  a  report 
of  the  condition  of  affairs  to  the  American  Commissioners 
at  Paris,  which  gives  a  most  vivid  and  instructive  pic- 
ture of  the  light  in  which  the  struggle  now  appeared  to 
the  ablest  of  its  partisans.  He  describes  the  ruinous 
consequences  of  the  capture  of  Fort  Washington,  the 
interception  of  the  despatches  of  Washington,  the  sick- 
ness that  was  raging  in  the  army,  the  want  of  warm 
clothing  in  the  coldest  period  of  the  winter,  the  head- 
long flight  through  New  Jersey  before  an  overwhelming 
force  of  the  enemy,  the  disappointment  of  all  hopes  of 
assistance  from  the  people.  '  Alas,  our  internal  enemies 
had  by  various  arts  and  means  frightened  many,  dis- 
affected others,  and  caused  a  general  languor  to  prevail 
over  the  minds  of  almost  all  men  not  before  actually 
engaged  in  the  war.  Many  are  also  exceedingly  dis- 
affected with  the  constitutions  formed  for  their  respective 
States,  so  that,  from  one  cause  or  other,  no  Jersey  militia 
turned  out  to  oppose  the  march  of  an  enemy  through 
the  heart  of  their  country ;  and  it  was  with  the  utmost 
difficulty  that  the  Associators  of  this  city  could  be  pre- 
vailed on  to  march  against  them.'  The  capture  of  Lee 


CH.  xni.  REPORT  OF  MORRIS.  277 

had  been  a  new  and  terrible  blow,  but  the  party  he 
commanded,  and  also  500  men  returning  from  the  Lakes 
under  General  Gates,  had  just  joined  Washington ;  and 
as  the  army  of  Howe  had  been  scattered,  the  one  hope 
of  the  Americans  was  that  they  might  be  able  to  cut  off 
the  detached  parties  of  the  British,  and  thus  compel  them, 
to  abandon  New  Jersey.  *  Unless  that  task  is  performed, 
Philadelphia — nay,  I  may  say  Pennsylvania — must  fall.' 
But  the  difficulties  were  almost  insuperable.  The 
dispositions  of  the  people  were  such  that  the  English 
had  excellent  intelligence,  while  the  revolutionists 
could  scarcely  obtain  any.  The  proclamation  of  Howe 
'had  a  wonderful  effect,  and  all  Jersey,  or  far  the 
greater  part  of  it,  is  supposed  to  have  made  their  sub- 
mission. .  .  .  Those  who  do  so  of  course  become  our 
most  inveterate  enemies ;  they  have  the  means  of  con- 
veying intelligence,  and  they  avail  themselves  of  it.' 
Philadelphia  was  in  a  state  of  complete  panic,  and 
numbers  of  its  citizens  were  taking  flight.  *  We  are 
told  the  British  troops  are  kept  from  plunder,1  but  the 
Hessians  and  other  foreigners,  looking  upon  that  as  the 
right  of  war,  plunder  wherever  they  go,  from  both 
Whigs  and  Tories  without  distinction,  and  horrid  de- 
vastations they  have  made/  The  rapid  depreciation  of 


1  The  good  conduct  ascribed  truth,  also  ascribes  the  outrages 

to  the   British   soldiers    is  not  indifferently    to    both    nations, 

borne  out  by  other  authorities.  (Examination   before  the  House 

Washington  speaks  of  the  devas-  of  Commons,  pp.  39,  40.)     Judge 

tations   and    robberies    in  New  Jones,  in  his  loyalist  Hist,  of  New 

Jersey  as  equally  the  work  of  the  York   (i.  114),  speaking  of  the 

British  and  the  Hessians,  and  he  plunderings  by  the  British  army 

notices  that  at  Princeton,  where  near  that  city,  says :  '  The  Hes- 

Bome  very  scandalous  acts  were  sians  bore  the  blame  at  first,  but 

perpetrated,  there  were  no  Ger-  the  British  were  equally  alert.' 

man     soldiers.      (Washington's  Jones  notices,  however,  that  the 

Works,  iv.  255,  268,  309,  310.)  army    under    General    Carleton 

Galloway,  who  had  particularly  was  honourably  distinguished  for 

good  means  of  ascertaining  the  its  good  conduct  (ibid.  90,  91). 


278   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xm. 

the  continental  currency  in  itself  threatened  *  instant 
and  total  ruin  to  the  American  cause.5  '  The  enormous 
pay  of  our  army,  the  immense  expenses  at  which  they 
are  supplied,  .  .  .  and,  in  short,  the  extravagance  that 
has  prevailed  in  most  departments  of  the  public  service, 
have  called  forth  prodigious  emissions  of  paper  money/ 
Unless  some  brilliant  success  immediately  changed  the 
prospects  of  the  war,  nothing,  in  the  opinion  of  this 
most  competent  observer,  but  the  speedy  assistance  of 
France  could  possibly  save  the  American  cause.  '  Our 
people,'  he  continues,  *  knew  not  the  hardships  and  cal- 
amities of  war  when  they  so  boldly  dared  Britain  to 
arms ;  every  man  was  then  a  bold  patriot,  felt  himself 
equal  to  the  contest,  and  seemed  to  wish  for  an  oppor- 
tunity of  evincing  his  prowess ;  but  now,  when  we  are 
fairly  engaged,  when  death  and  ruin  stare  us  in  the 
face,  and  when  nothing  but  the  most  intrepid  courage 
can  rescue  us  from  contempt  and  disgrace,  sorry  I  am 
to  say  it,  many  of  those  who  were  foremost  in  noise 
shrink  coward-like  from  the  danger,  and  are  begging 
pardon  without  striking  a  blow.' 1 

Nothing,  indeed,  could  now  have  saved  the  American 
cause  but  the  extraordinary  skill  and  determination  of 
its  great  leader,  combined  with  the  amazing  incapacity 
of  his  opponents.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  Sir 
William  Howe  possessed  in  a  fair  measure  the  know- 
ledge of  the  military  profession  which  books  could 
furnish,  but  not  one  gleam  of  energy  or  originality  at 
this  time  broke  the  monotony  of  his  career,  and  to  the 
blunders  of  the  Jersey  campaign  the  loyalists  mainly 
ascribed  the  ultimate  success  of  the  revolution.  The 
same  want  of  vigilance  and  enterprise  that  had  suffered 
the  Americans  to  seize  Dorchester  heights,  and  thus  to 
compel  the  evacuation  of  Boston,  the  same  want  of 


American  Diplomatic  Correspondence,  i.  233-246. 


CH.  xin.  INCAPACITY   OF   HOWE. 


279 


vigilance  and  enterprise  that  had  allowed  them  when 
totally  defeated  to  escape  from  Long  Island,  still  con- 
tinued. When  Washington  was  flying  rapidly  from 
an  overwhelming  force  under  Lord  Cornwallis,  Howe 
ordered  the  troops  to  stop  at  Brunswick,  where  they 
remained  inactive  for  nearly  a  week.  In  the  opinion 
of  the  best  military  authorities,  but  for  that  delay  the 
destruction  of  the  army  of  Washington  was  inevitable. 
The  Americans  were  enabled  to  cross  the  ,  Delaware 
safely  because,  owing  to  a  long  delay  of  the  British 
general,  the  van  of  the  British  array  only  arrived  at  its 
bank  just  as  the  very  last  American  boat  was  launched.1 
Even  then,  had  the  British  accelerated  their  passage, 
Philadelphia,  the  seat  and  centre  of  the  Revolutionary 
Government,  would  have  certainly  fallen.  The  army  of 
Washington  was  utterly  inadequate  to  defend  it.  A 
great  portion  of  its  citizens  were  thoroughly  loyal.  The 
Congress  itself,  when  flying  from  Philadelphia,  declared 
the  impossibility  of  protecting  it,  and  although  Washing- 
ton had  burnt  or  removed  all  the  boats  for  many  miles 
along  the  Delaware,  there  were  fords  higher  up  which 
might  easily  have  been  forced,  and  in  Trenton  itself, 
which  was  occupied  by  the  English,  there  were  ample  sup- 
plies of  timber  to  have  constructed  rafts  for  the  army.2 
But  Howe  preferred  to  wait  till  the  river  was 
frozen,  and  in  the  meantime,  though  his  army  was  in- 
comparably superior  to  that  of  Washington  in  numbers, 
arms,  discipline,  and  experience,  he  allowed  himself  to 
undergo  a  humiliating  defeat.  His  army  was  scattered 
over  several  widely  separated  posts,  and  Trenton,  which 
was  one  of  the  most  important  on  the  Delaware,  was 
lett  in  the  care  of  a  large  force  of  Hessians,  whose  dis- 
cipline had  been  greatly  relaxed.  Washington  per- 
ceived that  unless  he  struck  some  brilliant  blow  before 

1  See  Stedman,  i.  220-223. 

2  Jones's  History  of  New  York,  i.  124-128. 
20 


280    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  ca.  x:«. 

the  close  of  the  year,  his  cause  was  hopeless.  The 
whole  province  was  going  over  to  the  English.  As 
soon  as  the  river  was  frozen  he  expected  them  to  cross 
in  overwhelming  numbers,  and  in  a  few  days  he  was 
likely  to  be  almost  without  an  army.  At  the  end  of 
the  year  the  engagement  of  the  greater  part  of  his  troops 
would  expire,  and  on  December  24  he  wrote  to  the 
President  of  the  Congress,  '  I  have  not  the  most  distant 
prospect  of  retaining  them  a  moment  longer  than  the 
last  of  this  month,  notwithstanding  the  most  pressing 
solicitations  and  the  obvious  necessity  for  it.' l  Under 
these  desperate  circumstances  he  planned  the  surprise 
of  Trenton.  '  Necessity,'  he  wrote,  '  dire  necessity,  will, 
nay,  must  justify  an  attack.'  It  was  designed  with  admir- 
able skill  and  executed  with  admirable  courage.  On  the 
night  of  Christmas  1776,  Washington  crossed  the  Dela- 
ware, surprised  the  German  troops  in  the  midst  of  their 
Christmas  revelries,  and  with  a  loss  of  only  two  officers 
and  two  privates  wounded,  he  succeeded  in  capturing 
1,000  prisoners  .and  in  recrossing  the  river  in  safety.2 

The  effect  of  this  brilliant  enterprise  upon  the  spirits 
of  the  American  army  and  upon  the  desponding,  waver- 
ing, and  hostile  sentiments  of  the  population"  was  im- 
mediate. Philadelphia  for  the  present  was  saved,  and 
the  Congress  speedily  returned  to  it.  Immediately 
after  the  victory  a  large  force  of  militia  from  Pennsyl- 
vania joined  the  camp  of  Washington,3  and  at  the  end 
of  December  the  disbandment  of  the  continental  troops, 
which  a  week  before  he  had  thought  inevitable,  had 
been  in  a  great  measure  averted.  *  After  much  per- 
suasion,' he  wrote,  '  and  the  exertions  of  their  officers, 
half,  or  a  greater  proportion  of  those  [the  troops]  from 
the  eastward  have  consented  to  stay  six  weeks  on  a 


1  Washington's  Works,  iv.  244.  *  Ibid.  pp.  247-252. 

'»  Ibid.  249, 251. 


en.  sin.  THE  AMERICAN  CAUSE  REVIVES.  281 

bounty  of  ten  dollars.  I  feel  the  inconvenience  of  this 
advance,  and  I  know  the  consequences  which  will  result 
from  it,  but  what  could  be  done?  Pennsylvania  had 
allowed  the  same  to  her  militia ;  the  troops  felt  their 
importance  and  would  have  their  price.  Indeed,  as 
their  aid  is  so  essential  and  not  to  be  dispensed  with,  it 
is  to  be  wondered  at,  that  they  had  not  estimated  it  at 
a  higher  rate.' l  '  This  I  know  is  a  most  extravagant 
price  when  compared  with  the  time  of  service,  but  .  .  . 
I  thought  it  no  time  to  stand  upon  trifles  when  a  body 
of  firm  troops  inured  to  danger  was  absolutely  necessary 
to  lead  on  the  more  raw  and  undisciplined.' 2 

No  money  was  ever  better  employed.  Recrossing 
the  Delaware,  Washington  again  occupied  Trenton,  and 
then,  evading  an  overwhelming  British  force  which  was 
sent  against  him,  he  fell  unexpectedly  on  Princeton  and 
totally  defeated  three  regiments  that  were  posted  there 
to  defend  it.  The  English  fell  back  upon  Brunswick,  and 
the  greater  part  of  New  Jersey  was  thus  recovered  by 
the  Americans.  A  sudden  revulsion  of  sentiments  took 
place  in  New  Jersey.  The  militia  of  the  province  were 
at  last  encouraged  to  take  arms  for  Washington.  Ke- 
cruits  began  to  come  in.  The  manifest  superiority  of 
the  American  generalship  and  the  disgraceful  spectacle 
of  a  powerful  army  of  European  veterans  abandoning  a 
large  tract  of  country  before  a  ragged  band  of  raw  recruits 
much  less  numerous  than  itself,  changed  the  calcula- 
tions of  the  doubters,  while  a  deep  and  legitimate  indig- 
nation was  created  by  the  shameful  outrages  that  were 
perpetrated  by  the  British  and  German  troops. 

Unfortunately  these  outrages  were  no  new  thing.  An 
ardent  American  loyalist  of  New  York  complains  that 
one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  soldiers  of  General  Howe  when 
they  entered  that  city  was  to  break  open  and  plunder  the 


Washington's  TForfcs,  iv.  254,  255.  *  Ibid.  256. 


282   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xni. 

College  library,  the  Subscription  library,  and  the  Cor- 
poration library,  and  to  sell  or  destroy  the  books  and 
philosophical  apparatus ;  and  he  adds,  with  much  bitter- 
ness, that  during  all  the  months  that  the  rebels  were  in 
possession  of  New  York  no  such  outrage  was  perpe- 
trated, that  during  a  great  part  of  that  time  the  regular 
law  courts  had  been  open,  and  that  they  had  frequently 
convicted  American  soldiers  of  petty  larcenies,  and 
punished  them  with  the  full  approbation  of  their  officers.1 
In  New  Jersey  the  conduct  of  the  English  was  at  least 
as  bad  as  at  New  York.  A  public  library  was  burnt  at 
Trenton.  A  college  and  a  library  were  destroyed  at 
Princeton,  together  with  an  orrery  made  by  the  illus- 
trious Rittenhouse,  and  believed  to  be  the  finest  in 
the  world.2  Whigs  and  Tories  were  indiscriminately 
plundered.  Written  protections  attesting  the  loyalty 
of  the  bearer  were  utterly  disregarded,  and  men  who  had 
exposed  themselves  for  the  sake  of  England  to  complete 
ruin  at  the  hands  of  their  own  countrymen,  found  them- 
selves plundered  by  the  troops  of  the  very  Power  for 
which  they  had  risked  and  sacrificed  so  much.  Nor  was 
this  all.  A  British  army  had  fallen  back  before  an 
army  which  was  manifestly  incomparably  inferior  to  it, 
and  had  left  the  loyalists  over  a  vast  district  at  the 
mercy  of  their  most  implacable  enemies.  Numbers  who 
had  actively  assisted  the  British  were  obliged  to  fly  to 
New  York,  leaving  their  families  and  property  behind 
them.  Already  loyalist  risings  had  been  suppressed  in 
Maryland,  in  Delaware,  and  in  Carolina,  and  had  been 
left  unsupported  by  the  British  army.  The  abandon- 
ment of  New  Jersey  completed  the  lesson.  A  fatal 


1  Jones's     History    of    New  writer, 'every  load  of  forage  that 
York,  i.  136,  137.  did  not  come  from  New  York  was 

2  Annual  Register,  1777,  p.  13.  sought  or  purchased  at  the  price 
*  After  this  time,'  says  the  same  of  blood.' — Ibid.  p.  21. 


rn.  xiii.  FORMATION  OF   A  NEW  ARMY.  283 

damp  was   thrown  upon  the  cause  of  the  loyalists  in 
America  from  which  it  never  wholly  recovered.1 

In  the  meantime  the  Congress  was  busily  engaged 
in  raising  a  new  continental  army  to  replace  the  troops 
that  were  disbanded.  The  language  of  Washington  on 
this  subject  was  very  decided.  He  again  and  again 
urged  in  the  strongest  terms  the  absolute  impossibility 
of  carrying  on  the  war  successfully  mainly  by  militia, 
and  he  declared  his  firm  conviction  that,  on  the  whole, 
this  branch  of  the  service  had  done  more  harm  than 
good  to  the  cause.  He  was  equally  positive  that  no 
system  of  short  enlistments  would  be  sufficient,  and 
that  the  continental  troops  should  be  raised  for  the 
whole  duration  of  the  war.  To  do  this  it  was  necessary 
to  offer  high  pay  and  a  large  bounty,  but  it  was  a 
measure  of  capital  importance,  and  no  sacrifice  must  be 
grudged.  The  class  of  officers  appointed  must  be 
wholly  changed.  The  pay  of  the  officers  must  be  greatly 
raised  both  absolutely  and  in  its  proportion  to  the  pay  of 
the  privates.  The  system  of  allowing  soldiers  to  appoint 
their  own  officers  must  be  abandoned,  and  no  persons 
who  were  not  gentlemen  should  be  chosen.  It  is 
curious,  in  tracing  the  foundation  of  the  great  demo- 
cracy of  the  West,  to  notice  the  emphasis  with  which 
Washington  dwelt  on  the  danger  to  discipline  of  '  the 
soldiers  and  officers  being  too  nearly  on  a  level/  and  on 
the  facility  with  which  degrees  of  rank  were  transferred 
from  civil  to  military  life.  *  In  your  choice  of  officers,' 
he  wrote  to  one  of  his  colonels,  '  take  none  but  gentle- 
men. Let  no  local  attachments  influence  you.'  2 


1  See    Galloway's    Examina-  the  common  soldiers  is  the  best 
ti&n,  pp.  23,  65.  contrivance  hitherto  discovered 

2  Washington's     Works,     iv.  for  intercepting  the  spread  of  a 
111,   139  140,   269.     Mr.  King-  panic  or  any  other  bewildering 
lake  observes  that  'social  dif-  impulse  'through  an    army. — 
ference  between  the  officers  and  Hist,  of  the  Crimean  War,  i.307. 


284   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  vn.. 

It  was  only  with  great  hesitation  and  reluctance 
that  the  Congress  could  be  induced  to  adopt  these  views. 
They  hated  the  notion  of  a  standing  army.  They 
dreaded  the  expense  of  additional  bounties,  and  the 
unpopularity  of  a  great  difference  between  officers  and 
privates,  and  a  strong  jealousy  of  Washington  pre- 
vailed with  many  members.  John  Adams  expressed 
his  firm  conviction  that  if  the  system  of  enlistments  for 
the  war  were  adopted,  few  men,  except  mercenaries  of 
the  lowest  type,  would  serve  in  the  American  army.1 
At  length,  however,  in  September  1776  the  Congress 
agreed  to  vote  that  eighty-eight  battalions,  each  con- 
sisting of  750  men,  should  be  enlisted  for  the  war.  It 
entrusted  the  enlistment  of  these  battalions  to  the 
different  States,  but  assigned  to  each  its  quota  and  gave 
to  the  States  the  right  of  appointing  colonels  and  all 
inferior  officers,  and  it  at  the  same  time  revised  the 
articles  of  war  and  made  them  somewhat  more  strin- 
gent. A  bounty  of  twenty  dollars  was  offered  to  each 
recruit,  and  future  advantages  were  very  lavishly  pro- 
mised. Every  private  was  to  be  entitled  at  the  end  of 
his  service  to  100  acres  of  land,  while  larger  quantities, 
proportioned  to  their  rank,  were  promised  to  the  officers. 
Congress  also  offered  eight  dollars  to  every  person  who 
should  obtain  a  recruit ;  and  in  spite  of  the  strong  pro- 
test of  Washington,  several  of  the  States  offered  addi- 

1  He  says :  '  I  never  opposed  could  get  at  home  better  living, 

the  raising  of  men  during  the  more  comfortable  lodgings,  more 

war but  I  contended  that  than  double  wages  in  safety,  not 

I   knew  the  number  to   be  ob-  exposed  to  the  sicknesses  of  the 

tained  in  this  manner  would  be  camp,    would    bind    themselves 

very  small  in  New  England,  from  during    the    war  ?  ...  In    the 

whence  almost  the  whole  army  middle   States,  where  they  im- 

was  derived.    A  regiment  might  ported  from   Ireland    and   Ger- 

possibly  be  obtained  of  the  mean-  many  so  many  transported  con- 

est,  idlest,  most  intemperate,  and  victs  and  redemptioners,  it  was 

worthless,   but  no  more possible  they  might  obtain  some.' 

Was  it  credible  that   men  who  • — Adams's  Works,  Hi.  48. 


CB.  xiii.  FORMATION   OF   A   NEW   ARMY.  285 

tional  and  separate  bounties  for  enlistment.  It  was 
found,  however,  impossible,  even  on  these  terms,  to 
obtain  any  considerable  number  of  recruits  for  the 
whole  duration  of  the  war;  so  it  was  determined  to 
admit  recruits  for  three  years,  who  were  to  have  no 
land,  but  were  entitled  to  all  the  other  advantages. 
Congress  also,  after  some  hesitation,  gave  Washington 
an  extraordinary  power  of  raising  and  organising  six- 
teen additional  battalions  of  infantry,  three  regiments 
of  cavalry,  three  regiments  of  artillery,  and  a  corps  of 
engineers;  and  as  the  State  appointment  of  officers 
proved  very  prejudicial,  they  gave  Washington  a  dicta- 
torial power  over  officers  under  the  rank  of  Brigadier- 
General.1  But  in  spite  of  all  efforts  to  encourage 
enlistment,  a  large  proportion  of  the  continental  soldiers 
were  raised  by  compulsion.  The  States  passed  laws 
drafting  the  militia,  and  compelling  every  person  drafted 
to  enter  the  military  service  or  to  find  a  substitute 
under  pain  of  imprisonment.  In  Virginia  a  law  ex- 
empted every  two  persons  who  could  find  a  recruit  from 
all  military  service,  and  servants  were  manumitted  who 
consented  to  enter  the  army.2 

The  difficulty  of  obtaining  soldiers  was  by  no  means 
the  only  one  that  weighed  upon  the  Congress.  The 
powers  of  this  body  were  so  little  defined  and  so  im- 
perfectly acknowledged  that  it  had  scarcely  any  coer- 
cive authority  over  the  separate  States.  Prior  to  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  Congress  was  merely 
regarded  as  an  organisation  for  enabling  them  to  co- 
operate in  resisting  the  encroachments  or  coercive  mea- 
sures of  Great  Britain,  and  the  delegates  had  been 
severely  limited  by  the  instructions  of  their  constituents. 
Since  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  Congress  had 

1  Hildreth,  iii.  164, 166.  Wash-          2  Galloway's  Examination,  pp. 
ington's  Works,  L  205-207,  225.        18,  19. 


286   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xni. 

become  the  Government  of  the  country,  but  its  autho- 
rity rested  only  upon  manifest  necessity  and  general 
acquiescence,  and  had  no  real  legal  basis.  It  was  not 
even  a  representation  of  the  different  State  Assemblies. 
The  great  majority  of  its  members  were  elected  by 
Provincial  Conventions,  summoned  with  every  sort  of 
irregularity,  and  often  representing  very  small  sections 
of  the  people.1  It  was  obvious  that  such  a  body  could 
not  strain  allegiance  or  impose  sacrifices.  It  was  only 
in  November  1777  that  the  Articles  of  Confederation 
were  voted  by  Congress,  which  settled  its  constitution 
and  powers,  and  defined  the  respective  limits  of  the 
central  and  State  governments.  But  these  Articles  of 
Confederation  were  not  ratified  by  any  of  the  States  till 
July  1778,  and  they  were  not  ratified  so  as  to  become 
obligatory  on  all  the  States  till  March  1781.2  In  the 
meantime  Congress  exercised  the  authority  of  a  sovereign 
power,  but  it  was  obliged  to  be  more  than  commonly 
careful  not  to  arouse  the  jealousy  of  the  States.  Several 
questions  of  great  difficulty  had  indeed  already  arisen. 
It  was  necessary  to  determine  the  proportion  of  men 
and  money  to  be  contributed  by  each  State,  and  there 
were  dangerous  controversies  about  the  exact  boundaries 
of  the  different  States,  and  upon  the  question  whether 
the  Crown  lands  should  be  regarded  as  common  pro- 
perty at  the  disposition  of  Congress  for  the  public  good, 
or  as  State  'property  subject  only  to  the  local  legisla- 
tures.3 It  was  only  by  great  skill,  management,  and 
forbearance  that  these  questions  were  solved  or  evaded, 
and  a  unity  and  consistency  of  action  imparted  to  the 
whole  machine.  

1  Galloway's  Examination,  p.  chosen  by  one-twentieth  part  of 

11.   The  editor  of  this  Examina-  the  people.' 

tion  says :  « In  no  colony  where  2  Story  On  the  Constitution. 

these    delegates   were    not    ap-  book  ii.  ch.  i. 

pointed  by  the  Assemblies,  which  8  Ibid,  book  ii.  ch.  ii. 
were  in  four  only,    were    they 


CH.  xm.  FINANCIAL   DIFFICULTIES.  287 

The  first  necessity  of  the  war  was  to  raise  money  to 
carry  it  on.  A  great  portion  of  the  military  stores  had 
to  be  manufactured  or  imported,  and  it  was  very  evident 
that  in  no  part  of  the  world  was  it  less  possible  than  in 
America  to  count  upon  gratuitous  service.  But  the 
first  step  in  the  quarrel  with  Great  Britain  had  been 
due  to  the  attempt  of  the  British  Parliament  to  tax 
America,  and  a  great  impatience  of  taxation  had  been 
one  of  the  chief  supports  of  the  revolutionary  party. 
Under  these  circumstances,  Congress  did  not  venture 
to  claim  the  power  of  directly  imposing  any  tax,  and 
at  the  beginning  of  the  contest  the  separate  States, 
which  had  an  indisputable  right  of  self-taxation,  did 
not  venture  to  exercise  it  for  military  purposes,  know- 
ing how  large  a  part  of  the  population  were  lukewarm 
or  hostile  to  the  revolution.  During  the  first  two  years 
of  the  war  no  additional  taxes  of  any  importance  ap- 
pear to  have  been  imposed,  in  spite  of  the  earnest 
entreaties  of  Congress.1  But  money  was  imperatively 
needed,  and  the  plunder  of  loyal  subjects  went  but  a 
small  way  in  providing  it.  A  foreign  loan  was  ob- 
viously impossible  until  the  revolutionary  government 
had  acquired  some  aspect  of  permanence  and  security. 
The  only  course  that  remained  was  the  issue  of  paper 
money,  and  this  Congress  authorised  with  the  general 
implied  assent  of  the  States.  Five  issues,  amounting 
in  the  whole  to  fifteen  million  dollars,  had  been  made 
by  the  end  of  July  1776.  Congress  apportioned  the 
debt  thus  incurred  to  the  several  States  upon  the  basis 
of  population,  and  each  State  was  primarily  bound  to 
raise  taxes  for  the  gradual  redemption  of  its  portion  of 
the  debt,  and  if  it  failed,  the  other  States  were  liable 
to  the  creditor.  At  first  this  expedient  was  very  popu- 
lar, and  the  struggle  was  undertaken  under  the  belief 


1  Bolles's  Financial  Hist,  of  the  United  States,  pp.  195-197. 


288   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xni. 

that  it  would  be  only  a  short  one.  But  already,  in 
July  1776,  there  were  alarming  symptoms  of  that  de- 
preciation of  the  continental  paper  which  was  perhaps 
the  most  serious  danger  to  the  cause  of  the  Revolution, 
and  it  was  aggravated  by  the  failure  of  an  attempt 
which  was  made  to  raise  a  loan  of  5  millions  of  dollars 
at  4  per  cent. 

The  financial  question,  indeed,  was,  perhaps,  the 
most  formidable  which  the  party  of  the  Revolution  had 
to  encounter.  America  started  with  the  great  advan- 
tage of  a  prosperous  and  economical  people,  and  of  a 
government  entirely  free  from  the  profuse  extravagance 
and  corruption  of  the  English  political  system.  In  a 
remarkable  memorial  drawn  up  by  Franklin,  the  con- 
tinental nations  were  reminded  that  the  colonies  of 
America,  having  borrowed  10,000,000  dollars  in  the 
last  French  war,  had  paid  off  the  whole  of  this  debt  in 
1772,  and  that  the  entire  amount  expended  by  the  civil 
governments  of  three  millions  of  people  was  only 
70,000^  But  the  very  payment  of  the  debt,  though 
it  greatly  raised  the  credit  of  the  country,  had  left  it 
with  but  little  money,  and  it  was  estimated  that  the 
whole  amount  of  specie  in  the  colonies  amounted  to 
less,  probably  to  much  less,  than  twelve  millions  of 
dollars.2  The  Congress  judiciously  threw  open  the 
ports,  as  far  as  the  British  cruisers  would  allow  it,  to 
commerce,  and  the  American  privateers  brought  in 
much  wealth  to  the  nation,  but  the  revenues  derived 
from  these  sources  could  not  balance  the  expense  of 
the  war.  At  the  end  of  1777,  Congress  advised  the 
different  States  to  confiscate  and  sell  for  public  pur- 
poses the  property  of  all  who  had  abandoned  their  alle- 
giance to  the  State  and  passed  over  to  the  enemy,  and 


1  American   Diplomatic   Cor-          *  Bolles's  Financial   Hist,  of 
respondence,  iii.  16,  18.  the  United  States,  pp.  34,  45,  46. 


OH.  xiii.  THE  DEPRECIATED  CURRENCY.  289 

tliis  measure  was  energetically  pursued.  In  some  States, 
the  estates  and  rights  of  married  women,  of  widows  and 
minors,  and  of  persons  who  had  died  within  the  terri- 
tory possessed  by  the  British,  were  forfeited,  and  great 
masses  of  property  were  thus  brought  into  the  public 
treasury.1  But  in  spite  of  all  such  palliatives,  the 
financial  stress  was  rapidly  increasing,  and  measures  of 
the  most  violent  character  were  taken  to  arrest  it.  Al- 
ready, at  the  end  of  1776,  Robert  Morris  described  the 
proportionate  rate  of  paper  money  to  specie  as  from 
2  or  2^  to  1,  and  the  depreciation  naturally  advanced 
with  accelerated  speed/2  It  was  not  uniform  in  all  the 
States,  but  in  1778  the  rate  was  5  or  6  to  1.  In  1779 
it  was  27  or  28  to  1,  and  in  the  beginning  of  1780, 
when  new  measures  were  taken  on  the  subject,  it  was 
50  or  60  to  I.3  Its  necessary  consequence  was  a  cor- 
responding elevation  of  all  nominal  prices,  and  an  utter 
confusion  of  all  pecuniary  arrangements  which  had  been 
made  before  the  war.  Multitudes  of  quiet  and  indus- 
trious men,  who  had  been  perfectly  indifferent  to  the 
Stamp  Act  and  the  tea  duty,  found  themselves  brought 
face  to  face  with  ruin,  and  a  cry  of  indignation  and 
distress  rose  up  over  the  land.  *  The  country  people/ 
wrote  a  French  officer  from  Philadelphia,  *  are  so  ex- 
asperated at  the  high  price  everything  bears,  that  unless 
some  change  soon  takes  place  they  threaten  not  only  to 
withhold  provisions  from  the  town,  but  to  come  down 
in  a  body  and  punish  the  leaders.'4 

In  the  beginning  of  1777,  Congress,  with  the  warm. 

1  Bolles's  Financial  History  of  p.  159.     Many  details  about  the 
the  United  States,  pp.  56,  57.    '  prices   of   the   chief  articles  of 

2  American  Diplomatic    Cor-  consumption   will   be  found   in 
respondence,  i.  239.  that   very  charming  book,  Fa- 

8  Eamsay's    History    of    the  miliar  Letters  of  John  Adams 

American  Revolution,  ii.  129.  and  his  Wife  during  tlie  Revolu- 

4  Quoted  in  Bolles's  Financial  tion. 
History  of  the    United    States, 


290        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


CH.  Xlrf. 


approval  of  the  great  body  of  the  people,  determined  to 
enter  upon  a  course  which  the  more  sagacious  men  in 
America  knew  to  be  little  better  than  insane.  It  im- 
agined that  it  could  regulate  all  prices  by  law,  and 
maintain  them  at  a  level  greatly  below  that  which  the 
normal  operation  of  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  had 
determined.  Laws  with  this  object  were  speedily  made 
in  all  the  States.  The  prices  of  labour,  of  food,  of  every 
kind  of  manufacture,  of  all  domestic  articles,  were  strictly 
regulated,  and  committees  employed  to  see  that  these 
prices  were  not  exceeded.  The  measure,  of  course, 
aggravated  the  very  evil  it  was  intended  to  diminish. 
Goods  that  were  already  very  rare  and  greatly  needed 
were  carefully  concealed  and  withdrawn  from  sale  lest 
they  should  be  purchased  at  prices  below  their  real  value. 
In  most  cases  the  law  was  disregarded,  and  sellers  con- 
tinued to  sell,  sometimes  secretly,  sometimes  openly,  at 
prices  higher  than  the  law  permitted,  charging  an  addi- 
tional sum  to  compensate  them  for  the  risk  they  incurred. 
Mob  violence  directed  against  the  '  engrossers,  mono- 
polisers, and  forestallers,'  combinations  of  the  more 
patriotic  merchants  binding  themselves  to  sell  only  at 
the  authorised  prices,  newspaper  denunciations  and 
occasional  legal  punishments,  were  all  insufficient  and 
impotent ;  and  in  September  1777,  John  Adams  wrote 
that  in  his  sincere  opinion  the  Act  for  limiting  prices, 
if  not  repealed,  would  *  ruin  the  State,  and  introduce 
a  civil  war.'  At  last,  in  October  1778,  Congress  voted 
that  *  all  limitations  of  prices  of  gold  and  silver  be 
taken  off; '  but  the  States  continued  for  some  time 
•longer  to  endeavour  to  regulate  prices  by  legislation.1 

Still  more  terrible  in  their  consequences  than  the 


1  See  a  full   history  of   this      History  of  the  United  States,  pp, 
subject    in    Bolles's    Financial      158-173. 


CH.  xin.  PAPER   MADE   LEGAL   TENDER.  291 

attempted  limitation  of  prices  were  the  laws  which 
were  passed  by  the  different  States  at  the  invitation 
of  Congress,  making  paper  money  legal  tender,  com- 
pelling all  persons  to  receive  it  in  full  payment  of  debts 
or  obligations  contracted  before  the  Revolution,  and 
pronouncing  those  who  refused  to  do  so  enemies  of  the 
liberty  of  America.  Few  laws  have  spread  a  larger 
amount  of  distress,  dishonesty,  and  injustice  through 
a  great  community.  All  those  who  subsisted  on  life- 
incomes  or  fixed  rents  or  interest  of  money  found  their 
incomes  rapidly  reduced  to  a  small  fraction  of  theii 
previous  value ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  vast  wealth 
was  suddenly  created,  as  the  whole  debtor  class  were 
enabled  to  free  themselves  from  their  obligations. 
Debts  incurred  in  gold  were  paid  off  in  depreciated 
paper  which  was  only  worth  a  twentieth,  a  thirtieth,  a 
fortieth,  a  fiftieth  part  of  its  real  value.  They  were 
legally  extinguished  by  a  payment  which  was  in  reality 
not  Is.  or  6d.  or  even  3d.  in  the  £. 

In  a  country  where  debtors  were  extremely  nume- 
rous, and  where  the  whole  social  and  economical  system 
rested  on  the  relation  of  debtor  and  creditor,  this 
law  opened  the  door  to  the  most  enormous  and  far- 
reaching  fraud,  but  it  acted  differently  on  different 
classes,  and  this  difference  had  an  important  influence 
upon  the  fortunes  of  the  Revolution.  To  the  labourer 
who  lived  upon  his  daily  wages,  the  depreciation  was 
of  little  moment,  especially  if  he  had  been  too  im- 
provident to  lay  by  any  store  for  the  future.  Earning 
and  spending  in  the  same  currency,  the  change  was 
no  disadvantage  to  him,  and  he  was  even  benefited 
by  the  unnatural  stimulus  which  the  immense  quan- 
tities of  paper  money  thrown  suddenly  upon  the  mar- 
ket had  given  to  all  kinds  of  labour.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  wealthy  and  the  saving  and  the  helpless 
classes  were  in  general  utterly  ruined.  Debts  of  mer- 


292        ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.     CH.  xni. 

chants  which  had  been  contracted  when  goods  were 
cheapest  and  had  often  been  for  years  on  the  books, 
were  now  discharged  in  paper  not  a  twentieth  part  of 
the  real  value.  Widows  and  orphans  in  great  numbers, 
who  had  been  left  fortunes  in  money,  were  paid  off  by 
guardians,  trustees,  or  executors  in  depreciated  paper. 
Old  men  who  had  lent  out  the  savings  of  industrious 
lives,  and  had  been  living  comfortably  upon  the  inter- 
est, were  fortunate  if  they  did  not  receive  back  their 
principal  shrunk  to  perhaps  a  fiftieth  part  of  its  origi- 
nal value.  Everyone  who  had  been  sufficiently  saving 
to  lend  was  impoverished.  Everyone  who  had  been 
reckless  and  improvident  in  borrowing  was  enriched, 
and  '  truth,  honour,  and  justice,'  in  the  emphatic  words 
of  a  contemporary  American  historian,  '  were  swept 
away  by  the  overflowing  deluge  of  legal  iniquity.' l 
Among  the  enterprising  men  who  had  thrown  them- 
selves into  the  first  movement  of  the  revolution  were 
many  of  broken  fortunes  and  doubtful  antecedents, 
many  ardent  speculators,  many  clever  and  unscrupu- 
lous adventurers.  Such  men  found  in  the  violent 
depreciation,  the  local  variations,  and  the  sudden 
fluctuations  of  the  currency  a  ready  path  to  fortune, 
and  they  soon  acquired  a  new  and  sinister  interest  in 
the  continuance  of  the  struggle.  Among  others,  the 
gentleman  who  called  himself  Earl  of  Stirling,  and  who 
had  attained  the  position  of  brigadier-general  in  the 
American  service,  had  entered  it  overwhelmed  with 
debt,  but  by  availing  himself  of  the  condition  of  the 
currency,  he  is  stated  to  have  paid  off  debts  amount- 
ing to  nearly  80,OOOZ.  with  1,0002.  of  gold  and  silver.2 
Very  seldom  in  the  history  of  the  world  had  the  race 
for  wealth  been  so  keen,  or  the  passion  for  speculation 
BO  universal,  or  the  standard  of  public  honesty  so  low. 


Ramsay.  f  Jones's  History  of  New  York,  ii.  324. 


en.  xin.  GAMBLING  AND  DISHONESTY.  293 

1  The  first  visible  effect/  wrote  a  contemporary  Ameri- 
can economist,  *  of  an  augmentation  of  the  medium  and 
the  consequent  fluctuation  of  value  was  a  host  of  jockeys, 
who  followed  a  species  of  itinerant  commerce,  and  sub- 
sisted upon  the  ignorance  and  honesty  of  the  country 
people ;  or,  in  other  words,  upon  the  difference  in  the 
value  of  the  currency  in  different  places.  Perhaps  we 
may  safely  estimate  that  not  less  than  20,000  men  in 
America  left  honest  callings  and  applied  themselves  to 
this  knavish  traffic/  l  *  The  manners  of  the  continent,' 
wrote  the  Committee  of  Foreign  Affairs  in  March  1778, 
'  are  too  much  affected  by  the  depreciation  of  our  cur- 
rency. Scarce  an  officer  but  feels  something  of  a  desire 
to  be  concerned  in  mercantile  speculation,  from  finding 
that  his  salary  is  inadequate  to  the  harpy  demands 
which  are  made  upon  him  for  the  necessaries  of  life, 
and  from  observing  that  but  little  skill  is  necessary  to 
constitute  one  of  the  merchants  of  these  days.  We  are 
almost  a  continental  tribe  of  Jews.'  2  '  Speculation,' 
wrote  Washington,  *  peculation,  engrossing,  forestalling, 
with  all  their  concomitants,  afford  too  many  melan- 
choly proofs  of  the  decay  of  public  virtue.' 4  The  vast 
gains  rapidly  acquired  by  privateering,  the  enormous 
rate  of  insurance,  the  enormous  prices  given  for  such 
European  goods  as  arrived  safely  in  America,  had  al- 
ready produced  a  spirit  of  fierce  and  general  gambling 
which  the  depreciation  and  fluctuation  of  the  currency 
immeasurably  increased.  Immense  fortunes  were  sud- 
denly accumulated ;  and,  in  the  gloomiest  period  of 
the  struggle,  Philadelphia  was  a  scene  of  the  wildest 
and  maddest  luxury.  Many  years  after  the  peace  with 
England  had  been  signed,  the  older  Americans  could 

1  Noah  Webster's  Essays,  p.  the     speculations     hy    officers, 
105.  Bolles,  p.  118. 

2  American  Diplomatic  Corre-  3  Washington's  Works,vi.  210. 
tpondence,  i.  375.    See,  too,  on 


294:   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xin. 

clearly  trace  in  the  prevailing  spirit  of  reckless  and 
dishonest  speculation  the  demoralising  effects  on  the 
national  character  of  the  years  of  the  depreciated  cur- 
rency.1 

It  was  gradually  becoming  evident  to  intelligent 
observers  that  the  war  was  not  likely  to  be  determined 
by  mere  hard  fighting.  In  its  first  stages  a  decisive 
English  victory  might  more  than  once  have  concluded 
it;  but  it  was  plain  that,  if  the  American 'people,  or 
any  very  large  proportion  of  them,  persevered,  no  mili- 
tary expeditions  could  subdue  them.  In  no  country  in 
the  world  was  it  more  easy  to  avoid  a  decisive  action, 
and  the  whole  texture  and  organisation  of  colonial  life 
hung  so  loosely  together,  that  the  capture  of  no  single 
point  was  likely  to  be  of  vital  importance.  In  the 
course  of  the  war  every  important  town — Boston,  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  Newport,  Savannah,  Charleston — 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  British,  but  the  struggle  still 
continued.  A  Rebel  Convention  governed  a  part  of  the 
State  of  New  York  at  the  very  time  when  the  capital 


1  Oct.  4, 1779,  Franklin  wrote :  luxury  of  equipage,  luxury  of  the 
4  The  extravagant  luxury  of  our  table.  We  are  told  of  one  enter- 
country  in  the  midst  of  all  its  tainment  at  which  800Z.  was 
distresses  is  to  me  amazing.' —  spent  in  pastry.  As  I  read  the 
American  Diplomatic  Corre-  private  letters  of  those  days  I 
spondence,  iii.  116.  Chastellux,  sometimes  feel  as  a  man  might 
in  his  Travels  in  North  America,  feel  if  permitted  to  look  down 
gives  a  vivid  picture  of  the  luxury  upon  a  foundering  ship  whose 
at  Philadelphia.  Mr.  Bolles  (to  crew  were  preparing  for  death 
whose  excellent  work  I  am  in-  by  breaking  open  the  steward's 
debted  for  most  of  these  quota-  room,  and  drinking  themselves 
tions),  cites  the  striking  descrip-  into  madness.  .  .  .  The  moral 
tion  given  by  a  modern  American  sense  of  the  people  had  contracted 
writer :  '  Speculation  ran  riot.  a  deadly  taint.  The  spirit  of 
Every  form  of  wastefulness  and  gambling  .  .  .  was  undermining 
extravagance  prevailed  in  town  the  foundations  of  society.' — 
and  country,  nowhere  more  than  Greene's  Historical  View  of  the 
at  Philadelphia,  under  the  very  American  Revolution. 
eyes  of  Congress ;  luxury  of  dress, 


ra.  xin.  PROSPECTS   OF  THE  WAR.  205 

and  the  surrounding  country  were  in  the  undisputed 
possession  of  the  King's  army ;  and  whole  districts  sub- 
mitted without  a  struggle  whenever  the  troops  appeared, 
and  cast  off  their  allegiance  the  moment  they  had  gone. 
To  occupy  and  maintain  in  permanent  subjection  a 
country  so  vast,  so  difficult,  and  so  sparsely  populated ; 
to  support  a  great  army  in  the  midst  of  such  a  country, 
and  3,000  miles  from  England,  if  the  people  were  really 
hostile,  was  absolutely  and  evidently  impossible,  and 
the  attempt  could  not  long  be  made  without  a  ruinous 
expense. 

The  real  hope  of  success  lay  in  the  languor,  divisions, 
and  exhaustion  of  the  Americans  themselves.  A  large 
minority  detested  the  revolution.  A  large  majority  were 
perfectly  indifferent  to  it,  or  were  at  least  unwilling 
to  make  any  sacrifice  for  it.  Jealousies  and  quarrels, 
insubordination  and  corruption,  inordinate  pretensions 
and  ungovernable  rapacity  divided  and  weakened  its 
supporters.  The  extreme  difficulty  of  inducing  a  suffi- 
cient number  of  soldiers  to  enrol  themselves  in  the  army 
of  Washington,  the  difficulty  of  procuring  cannon  and 
gunpowder  and  every  kind  of  military  stores,  the  want 
of  woollen  clothes,  and  of  other  important  articles  of 
European  commerce,  the  ruin,  the  impoverishment,  and 
the  contusion  that  resulted  from  the  enormous  deprecia- 
tion of  the  currency,  and  finally  the  impossibility  of 
paying  for  the  essential  services  of  the  war,  made  it 
probable  that  a  peace  party  would  soon  gain  the  ascend- 
ent, and  that  the  colonies  would  soon  be  reunited  to 
the  mother  country. 

If  America  had  been  left  unaided  by  Europe  this 
would  probably  have  happened.  A  large  proportion  of 
the  States  would  almost  certainly  have  dropped  off,  and 
although  the  war  might  have  been  continued  for  some 
time  in  New  England  and  Virginia,  it  was  tolerably 
'evident  that  even  there  no  large  amount  of  gratuitous 
21 


296   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  r:JL 

service  or  real  self-sacrifice  could  be  expected.  Wash- 
ington himself  at  one  time  gravely  contemplated  the 
possibility  of  being  reduced  to  carry  on  a  guerilla  war- 
fare in  the  back  settlements.  But  at  this  most  critical 
period  foreign  assistance  came  in  to  help,  and  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  it  was  the  intervention  of  France 
that  saved  the  cause. 

I  have  already  noticed  the  circumstances  under 
which  Congress  in  1775  determined  to  seek  this  assist- 
ance, and  the  strong  motives  of  resentment,  rivalry,  and 
interest  that  disposed  France  to  accede  to  the  request. 
It  was  in  November  1775  that  a  committee  was  ap- 
pointed to  correspond  with  *  friends  of  America  in  other 
countries  ; '  and  early  next  year  Silas  Deane  was  sent  to 
Paris  as  secret  agent,  with  instructions  to  ascertain  the 
dispositions  of  the  French  Court,  and  to  endeavour  to 
obtain  arms  and  supplies.  He  arrived  in  Paris  in  July 
1776,  but  before  that  date  the  French  ministers  had 
resolved  upon  their  policy.  Choiseul,  who  had  watched 
with  especial  eagerness  the  rise  of  the  troubles  in  the 
colonies,  and  who  had  steadily  laboured  to  reconstruct 
the  shattered  navy  of  France,  to  maintain  a  close  alliance 
between  the  different  branches  of  the  House  of  Bourbon, 
and  to  oppose  on  all  occasions  the  interests  of  England, 
had  fallen  from  power  in  1770,  but  he  was  still  said  to 
have  some  influence,  and  to  have  exerted  it  in  favour 
of  the  colonies.  The  existing  ministry  was  presided 
over  by  Count  Maurepas,  and  its  most  powerful  mem- 
bers were  Vergermes,  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
and  the  illustrious  Turgot,  the  Comptroller-General. 

In  the  beginning  of  1776  Vergennes  drew  up  a 
memorial  on  American  affairs,  which  was  laid  before  the 
King.  It  was  written  in  a  tone  of  extreme  hostility  to 
England,  and  although  it  affected  to  deprecate  a  war, 
its  whole  tendency  was  to  urge  the  Government  to  a 
more  directly  aggressive  policy.  The  civil  war  that 


CH.  xiii.  MEMORIAL   OF   VERGENJTOS.  297 

had  arisen  was,  in  the  opinion  of  Yergennes,  infinitely 
advantageous  both  to  France  and  to  Spain,  in  so  far  as 
it  was  likely  to  exhaust  both  the  victors  and  the  van- 
quished, but  there  were  some  grave  dangers  to  be  feared. 
It  was  possible  that  the  English  would  acknowledge  the 
impracticability  of  coercing  America,  and  would  enter 
into  a  policy  of  conciliation ;  and  it  was  only  too  pro- 
bable* that  in  that  case  they  would  employ  the  great 
army  they  had  collected  in  America  to  seize  the  posses- 
sions of  France  and  Spain  in  the  West  Indies.  Such 
an  enterprise  would  be  extremely  popular.  It  would 
speedily  efface  the  recollection  of  the  domestic  quarrel ; 
it  would  be  almost  certainly  successful,  for  the  French 
and  Spanish  West  Indies  were  practically  indefensible ; 
and  it  was  especially  likely  if  Chatham  again  became 
minister,  as  it  would  enable  him  to  overthrow  the 
arrangements  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  against  which  he 
had  so  bitterly  protested.  It  was  possible  again,  that 
the  King  of  England,  having  conquered  the  liberties  of 
America,  would  endeavour  to  subvert  those  of  England, 
but  he  could  only  do  so  by  flattering  the  national  hatred 
and  jealousy,  and  by  surrounding  himself  with  the 
popularity  that  springs  from  a  successful  foreign  war. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  American  States  became  in- 
dependent, it  might  be  feared  that  England  would  seek 
to  indemnify  herself  for  her  loss  and  humiliation  by  seiz- 
ing the  French  and  Spanish  West  Indies ;  and  it  was  not 
impossible  that  America  herself,  being  shut  out  from  the 
English  markets,  might  be  compelled  by  necessity  to  seek 
in  new  conquests  an  outlet  for  her  productions. 

The  Kings  of  France  and  Spain  were  animated  by 
a  strong  love  of  peace,  and  peace  must  in  consequence, 
if  possible,  be  preserved.  If,  however,  they  had  thought 
fit  'to  follow  the  impulse  of  their  interests,  and  per- 
haps of  the  justice  of  their  cause  ...  if  their  military 
and  financial  means  were  in  a  state  of  development 


298        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY,      CK.  xrrs. 

proportionate  to  their  substantial  power,  it  would,  110 
doubt,  be  necessary  to  say  to  them  that  Providence 
had  marked  out  this  moment  for  the  humiliation  of 
England  .  .  .  that  it  is  time  to  avenge  upon  her  the 
evils  which,  since  the  commencement  of  the  century, 
she  has  inflicted  upon  her  neighbours  and  rivals ; 
that  for  this  purpose  all  means  should  be  employed 
to  render  the  next  campaign  as  animated  as  possible, 
and  to  procure  advantages  to  the  Americans.  The 
degree  of  passion  and  exhaustion  should  determine 
the  moment  to  strike  the  decisive  blows  which  would 
reduce  England  to  a  secondary  Power  .  .  .  and  deliver 
the  universe  from  a  greedy  tyrant  that  was  absorbing 
all  power  and  all  wealth.'  This  bold  policy,  however, 
of  undisguised  assistance  the  two  Kings  did  not  wish  to 
adopt,  and  so  another  policy  was  submitted  to  the  King 
and  to  his  council. 

*  The  continuance  of  the  war  for  at  least  one  year  is 
desirable  to  the  two  Crowns.  To  that  end  the  British 
ministry  must  be  maintained  in  the  persuasion  that 
France  and  Spain  are  pacific,  so  that  it  may  not  fear  to 
embark  in  an  active  and  costly  campaign ;  while  on  the 
other  hand  the  courage  of  the  Americans  should  be 
kept  up  by  secret  favours  and  vague  hopes  which  will 
prevent  accommodation.  .  .  .  The  evils  the  British  will 
make  them  suffer  will  embitter  their  minds ;  their 
passions  will  be  more  and  more  inflamed  by  the  war ; 
and  should  the  mother  country  be  victorious,  she  will 
for  a  long  time  need  all  her  strength  to  keep  down 
their  spirit.'  To  carry  out  this  policy  the  ministers 
must  '  dexterously  tranquillise  the  English  ministry  as 
to  the  intentions  of  France  and  Spain,'  while  secretly 
assisting  the  insurgents  with  military  stores  and  money, 
and  they  must  at  the  same  time  strengthen  their  own 
forces  with  a  view  to  a  war.1 

J  See  Bancroft's  History  of  the  American  Revolution. 


CH.  xiii.  MEMORIAL   OF  TURGOT.  299 

In  order  to  judge  the  real  character  of  the  advice  so 
frankly  given,  we  must  remember  that  England  was  at 
this  time  at  perfect  peace  with  France;  that  she  had 
given  no  provocation  or  reasonable  pretext  for  hostility ; 
that  as  the  American  colonies  had  not  yet  declared  their 
independence,  their  quarrel  with  the  mother  country 
was  as  yet  a  purely  domestic  one,  and  also  that  no  con- 
sideration of  their  welfare  or  of  the  principles  they  were 
advocating  entered  in  the  smallest  degree  into  the 
motives  of  action  of  Yergennes. 

By  the  command  of  the  King  the  memorial  of  Ver- 
gennes  was  submitted  to  Turgot,  who,  in  April  1776, 
presented  a  paper  containing  his  own  views  of  the 
question.  Sooner  or  later,  in  the  opinion  of  Turgot,  the 
independence  of  America  was  a  certainty,  and  it  would 
totally  change,  not  only  the  relations  of  Europe  with 
America,  but  also  all  the  prevailing  maxims  of  com- 
merce and  politics.  America  must  necessarily  be  a 
nation  of  freetraders.  She  need  not  seek  new  con- 
quests in  order  to  find  a  market  for  her  produce. 
By  throwing  open  her  own  ports  she  would  soon 
oblige  other  nations  to  do  the  same ;  and  they  would 
not  be  long  in  discovering  that  the  whole  system  of 
monopoly,  restriction,  and  dependence  on  which  the 
colonial  system  of  all  European  nations  during  the 
last  two  centuries  was  founded  was  an  absolute  delu- 
sion. 

It  is  a  remarkable  illustration  of  the  manner  in 
which  economical  ideas  were  growing  in  Europe,  that 
this  opinion,  which  a  few  years  before  would  have  been 
regarded  as  the  most  extravagant  of  paradoxes,  was  in 
1776  independently  promulgated  by  the  greatest  French 
statesman  of  his  age,  and  by  the  founder  of  political 
economy  in  England.  Turning,  however,  to  the  imme- 
diate interests  of  France,  Turgot  considered  her  most 
pressing  and  immediate  necessity  to  be  peace.  Her 


300        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,     cn.  xm. 

finances  were  so  deranged  that  nothing  but  extreme 
and  long-continued  frugality  could  avert  a  catastrophe, 
and  the  foreign  dangers  that  threatened  her  were  much 
exaggerated.  There  was  no  sufficient  reason  to  believe 
that  the  English  ministers  contemplated  attacking  her, 
and  it  was  extremely  unlikely  that  in  the  very  probable 
event  of  England  losing  her  colonies  she  would  launch 
into  a  new  and  costly  war,  especially  as  in  that  case 
she  would  have  lost  the  basis  of  her  operations  against 
the  French  West  Indies.  The  severance  of  the  colonies 
from  England  would  not  injure  England,  and  it  would 
be  a  great  benefit  to  the  world,  on  account  of  its  in- 
evitable influence  on  colonial  and  commercial  policy. 
'  Wise  and  happy  will  be  that  nation  which  shall  first 
know  how  to  bend  to  the  new  circumstances,  and  con- 
sent to  see  in  its  colonies  allies  and  not  subjects.  .  .  . 
When  the  total  separation  of  America  shall  have  ex- 
tinguished among  the  European  nations  the  jealousy  of 
commerce,  there  will  exist  among  men  one  great  cause  of 
war  the  less,  and  it  is  very  difficult  not  to  desire  an  event 
which  is  to  accomplish  this  good  for  the  human  race.' 

The  immediate  interests,  however,  of  France  and 
Spain  must  be  judged  upon  narrower  grounds.  Eng- 
land was  their  great  rival,  and  the  policy  of  the  English 
ministers  was  so  infatuated  that  their  success  in  America 
would  be  the  result  most  favourable  to  French  and 
Spanish  interests.  If  England  subdued  her  colonies  by 
ruining  them,  she  would  lose  all  the  benefits  she  had 
hitherto  derived  from  them.  If  she  conquered  them 
without  materially  diminishing  their  strength,  she  would 
find  them  a  source  of  perpetual  weakness,  for  they  would 
always  be  awaiting  their  opportunity  to  rebel.  The  true 
interest  of  France  was  to  remain  perfectly  passive.  She 
must  avoid  any  course  that  would  lead  to  war.  She 
must  give  no  money  and  no  special  assistance  to  the 
revolted  colonists,  but  the  ministers  might  shut  their 


CH.  xiii.  FRANCE  ASSISTS  AMERICA.  301 

eyes  if  either  of  the  contending  parties  made  purchases 
in  French  harbours.1 

Maurepas  and  Malesherbes  supported  the  pacific 
views  of  Turgot,  but  Vergennes  found  the  other  minis- 
ters on  his  side,  and  his  policy  speedily  prevailed.  Males- 
herbes, discouraged  at  the  resistance  to  his  internal 
reforms,  retired  from  the  ministry  in  the  beginning  of 
1776,  and  Turgot,  who  was  detested  by  the  aristocracy 
and  disliked  by  the  Queen,  was  dismissed  a  few  months 
later.  The  French  Government,  while  duping  the  Eng- 
lish ministry  by  repeated  and  categorical  assertions  of 
their  strict  neutrality,  subsidised  the  revolt ;  and  in  May 
1776,  nearly  two  months  before  the  arrival  of  Silas 
Deane  in  Europe,  Vergennes  wrote  a  letter  to  the  King, 
of  which  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  it  is  more  like 
the  letter  of  a  conspirator  than  of  the  minister  of  a  great 
nation.  He  was  about  to  authorise  Beaumarchais  to 
furnish  the  Americans  with  a  million  of  livres  for  the 
service  of  the  English  colonies.  He  was  so  anxious  to 
preserve  the  secrecy  of  the  transaction  that  he  had  taken 
care  that  his  letter  to  Beaumarchais  should  not  be  in  his 
own  handwriting  or  in  the  handwriting  of  any  of  his 
secretaries  or  clerks,  and  he  had  accordingly  employed 
his  son,  a  boy  of  fifteen,  on  whose  discretion  he  could 
rely.  He  would  now  write  to  Grimaldi,  the  minister 
of  Spain,  proposing  to  him  to  contribute  a  similar 
amount.2 

The  reputation  which  literary  achievement  gives,  so 
far  eclipses  after  a  few  years  minor  political  services 
that  it  is  probable  that  only  a  small  fraction  of  those  who 
delight  in  the  '  Marriage  of  Figaro '  or  in  the  '  Barber 
of  Seville  '  are  aware  that  Beaumarcbais  was  for  a  time 
one  of  the  most  active  of  the  confidential  agents  of  Ver- 
gennes,  and  that  he  bore  a  very  considerable  part  in  the 

1  See  this  memoir  in  Target's          2  Flassan,  Hist,  de  la  Diplo- 
Works,  viii.  (ed.  1809).  matie  Fran$aise,  vi.  143, 144. 


302        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,     ca.  xiii. 

transactions  that  led  to  the  independence  of  America. 
Under  an  assumed  name,  he  brought  a  first  loan  of  a 
million  livres  from  Vergennes  to  the  Americans.  A 
similar  sum  was  sent  by  Spain,  and  the  money  was 
employed  in  purchasing  from  the  royal  arsenals  of 
France  such  munitions  of  war  as  were  necessary  for  the 
army.  In  the  course  of  1776,  Deane  was  able  in  this 
way  to  procure  for  his  countrymen  30,000  stand  of 
arms,  30,000  suits  of  clothes,  more  than  250  pieces  of 
cannon,  and  great  quantities  of  other  military  stores.1 

The  assistance  at  this  critical  moment  was  of  vital  im- 
portance, and  from  this  time  France  continued  steadily, 
by  successive  loans  and  supplies  of  military  munitions, 
to  maintain  the  army  of  Washington.  In  September 
1776,  Franklin  and  Arthur  Lee,  together  with  Deane, 
were  appointed  commissioners  at  Paris  for  the  purpose 
of  negotiating  treaties  with  foreign  Powers,  and  espe- 
cially with  France,  and  rather  more  than  a  year  later  a 
furious  quarrel  broke  out  between  Lee  and  Deane,  which 
ended  in  the  recall  of  the  latter,  with  serious  imputations 
upon  his  integrity.  He  was  replaced  by  John  Adams, 
but  before  that  time  the  alliance  with  America  had  been 
signed.  The  assistance  of  France,  however,  was  never 
more  valuable  than  in  the  first  period  of  the  war,  while 
she  was  still  at  peace  with  England.  American  vessels 
were  admitted,  by  the  connivance  of  the  ministers,  into 
French  ports  with  articles  of  commerce  of  which  by  law 
French  merchants  had  a  strict  monopoly,  and  the  Ameri- 
can agents  were  soon  able  to  inform  the  Congress  that 
France  gave  the  commerce  of  the  insurgent  colonies 
greater  indulgences  in  her  ports  than  the  commerce  of 
any  other  nation  whatever.2  Privateers  were  sheltered 
and  equipped ;  prizes  were  secretly  sold  in  the  French 

1  American  Diplomatic  Correspondence,  i.  131* 
»  Ibid.  pp.  37,  69,  92,  93. 


CH.  xni.  PERFIDY  OF  VE11GENNES.  303 

harbours.  Experienced  officers,  trained  in  the  French 
army,  were  sent  to  America  with  the  permission,  or 
even  at  the  instigation,  of  the  French  ministers,  to 
organise  or  command  the  American  forces.  In  the  be- 
ginning of  1777  one  of  the  ablest  sea  officers  in  France 
was  engaged,  by  the  permission  of  the  minister,  in 
superintending  the  construction  in  French  harbours  of 
ships  of  war  for  America,1  and  finally  a  new  grant  of 
two  millions  of  livres  from  the  Crown  was  made,  the 
King  exacting  no  conditions  or  promise  of  repayment, 
and  only  requiring  absolute  secrecy.2 

It  was  not  possible  that  these  things  could  be  wholly 
concealed  from  the  English  Ambassador,  but  the  comedy 
was  boldly  if  not  skilfully  played.  Yergennes  professed 
his  absolute  ignorance  of  the  despatch  of  military  stores 
to  America,  at  the  very  time  when  by  his  authorisation 
they  were  freely  exported  from  the  King's  own  arsenal. 
He  gave  orders  that  vessels  which  were  pointed  out  as 
laden  with  such  stores  should  be  stopped,  and  then 
allowed  them  secretly  to  escape.  He  formally  recalled 
the  leave  of  absence  of  officers  who  were  said  to  be 
going  to  America,  but  did  not  oblige  them  to  return  to 
their  regiments.  He  gave  orders  that  no  prizes  should 
be  sold  in  the  French  ports,  and  then  instructed  persons 
about  the  Court  to  inform  the  American  agents  that  this 
measure  was  necessary,  as  France  was  not  yet  fully  pre- 
pared for  war,  but  that  they  must  not  for  a  moment 
doubt  the  good-will  of  the  Court.  He  even  imprisoned 
for  a  time  some  who  were  too  openly  breaking  the  law, 
and  restored  some  prizes  which  were  brought  too  osten- 
tatiously into  French  harbours,  but  he  secretly  granted 
400,000  livres  as  a  compensation  to  their  captors,  and 
the  prisoners  found  no  difficulty  in  escaping  from  the 
prison  at  Dunkirk.  He  again  and  again,  in  every  term 

1  American  Diplomatic  Correspondence,  i.  273,  341, 
*  Ibid.  p.  273. 


304:   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xm. 

that  could  be  binding  upon  men  of  honour,  assured  the 
English  Ambassador  of  the  perfect  neutrality  and  pacific 
intentions  of  France,  and  of  the  determination  of  the 
French  King  to  observe  religiously  the  treaties  he  had 
signed;  and  he  at  the  same  time  steadily  pressed  on  his 
naval  preparations  for  the  war.1  If  the  French  were 
somewhat  slower  in  throwing  away  the  mask  and  the 
scabbard  than  the  Americans  could  have  wished,  they 
at  least  gave  the  colonies  the  assistance  most  needed, 
and,  as  the  commissioners  acutely  said,  the  very  delay 
was  not  without  its  compensation.  l  Enjoying  the 
whole  harvest  of  plunder  upon  the  British  commerce, 
which  otherwise  France  and  Spain  would  divide  with 
us,  our  infant  naval  power  finds  such  plentiful  nourish- 
ment as  has  increased  and  must  increase  its  growth  and 
strength  most  marvellously.' 2 

'  All  Europe/  they  wrote,  about  this  time,  *  is  for 
us.'  '  Every  nation  in  Europe  wishes  to  see  Britain 
humbled,  having  all  in  their  turn  been  offended  by  her 
insolence,  which  in  prosperity  she  is  apt  to  discover  on 
all  occasions.' 3  England  under  the  great  ministry  of 
Pitt  had  acquired  an  empire  and  a  preponderance  on 
the  sea  not  less  overwhelming  and  not  less  menacing 
than  that  which  Charles  Y.  and  Lewis  XIV.  had  ac- 
quired on  land,  and  it  had  become  a  main  object  of  the 
governing  classes  on  the  Continent  to  reduce  it,  while 
the  merchants  in  every  nation  were  looking  forward 
with  eagerness  to  the  opening  of  the  great  field  of 

1  See  the  full  details  of  these  French,    both    in     Paris    and 

proceedings  in  the  very  curious  through  their    ambassador     in 

letters  of  Franklin  and  Deane,  London,  of  their  pacific   inten- 

American  Diplomatic  Correspon-  tions,   see    Adolphus's  Hist,  of 

dence,  i.  272,  273,  311,  313,  319,  England,  ii.  309,  429,  439. 
320,  322,  341,  371.     Correspon-          a  American  Diplomatic  Corr* 

dence  of  George  III.  with  Lord  spondence,  i.  321. 
North,  ii.   68,  69.    On  the  re-          »  Ibid.  pp.  278,  281. 
peated  assurances  given  by  the 


en.  xni.          EUROPEAN  ASSISTANCE  TO  AMERICA.  305 

American  commerce,  which  had  hitherto  been  a  mono- 
poly of  England.  Spain,  which  was  greatly  under  the 
influence  of  France,  and  very  hostile  to  England,  sup- 
plied the  colonies  with  money  and  with  gunpowder,  and 
gave  their  vessels  greater  trade  privileges  than  those  of 
any  other  country,1  though  without  any  real  wish  for 
American  independence.  The  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany 
secretly  removed  all  duties  from  American  commerce, 
and  expressed  himself  so  favourable  to  the  American 
cause  that  Deane  assured  his  employers  that  they  might 
safely  purchase  or  construct  frigates  at  Leghorn.2 
Frederick  of  Prussia,  who  had  never  forgiven  his  de- 
sertion by  England,  without  committing  himself  openly 
to  the  Americans,  or  even  consenting  to  receive  their 
envoy,  watched  with  undisguised  delight  the  growing 
embarrassments  of  his  old  ally,  threw  every  obstacle  in 
his  power  in  the  way  of  German  enlistments,  and  took 
great  pains  to  assure  France  that  he  would  remain 
perfectly  passive  if  she  entered  into  war  with  England. 
The  Emperor,  hostile  on  all  other  points  to  Frederick, 
agreed  with  him  in  discouraging  the  German  enlist- 
ments for  England.  Holland  was  delighted  to  find  in 
America  a  new  market  for  her  goods,  and  the  little 
Dutch  island  of  St.  Eustatius  became  a  great  mart  for 
supplying  the  wants  of  the  insurgents. 

In  France  public  opinion  began  to  flow  with  irre- 
sistible force  in  favour  of  war.  The  old  enmity  towards 
England,  the  martial  spirit  which  had  been  repressed 
and  profoundly  humiliated,  the  recollection  of  the  long 
series  of  defeats  and  disasters  which  had  terminated  in 
the  shameful  peace  of  1763,  and  also  the  prevailing  fear 
that,  unless  the  power  of  England  were  diminished,  all 


1  American  Diplomatic  Correspondence,  i.  92,  93,  275. 
1  Ibid.  pp.  65,  92,  93. 


306   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CK.  xm. 

the  French  dominions  in  the  West  Indies  and  South 
Africa  must  speedily  be  captured,  had  deeply  stirred 
the  French  people ;  while  all  that  was  best  in  French 
thought  and  most  generous  in  French  character  wel- 
comed the  rise  of  the  great  republic  of  the  West.  The 
small  but  growing  school  of  economists  saw  in  it  the 
future  champion  of  free  trade.  The  followers  of  Voltaire, 
who  aspired  beyond  all  things  to  religious  liberty, 
pointed  with  enthusiasm  to  the  complete  separation  of 
Church  and  State  and  the  total  absence  of  religious  re- 
strictions in  the  American  constitutions,  and  they  began 
to  extol  America  even  more  than  they  had  hitherto  ex- 
tolled China,  as  the  ideal  land  of  philosophers  and  free- 
thinkers. The  followers  of  Rousseau,  who  valued  beyond 
all  things  political  equality  and  liberty,  and  who  were 
at  this  time  in  the  zenith  of  their  influence,  saw  in  the 
New  World  the  realisation  of  their  principles  and  of 
their  dreams,  the  final  refuge  of  liberties  that  were 
almost  driven  from  Europe.  The  influence  of  French 
speculation  on  the  American  contest  had  in  truth  been 
extremely  slight.  The  struggle  in  New  England  was  of 
an  essentially  English  kind,  directed  to  very  practical 
ends,  and  turning  mainly  on  the  right  of  taxation  and 
on  disputed  principles  or  interpretations  of  the  British 
Constitution;  but  there  were  a  few  men  in  America 
who  had  been  in  some  degree  touched  by  French  thought, 
and  among  them  was  Jefferson,  the  chief  author  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  The  passage  in  that 
document — curiously  unlike  the  cautious  spirit  of  New 
England  lawyers  and  of  Pennsylvanian  Quakers,  and 
curiously  audacious  in  a  document  that  emanated  from 
an  assembly  consisting  largely  of  slave-owners — in 
which  the  American  legislators  asserted  as  a  self- 
evident  truth  that  all  men  were  created  equal,  and  were 
endowed  by  the  Creator  with  an  inalienable  right  to 
liberty,  might  have  been  written  by  Rousseau  himself; 


en.  xni.    FRENCH  ENTHUSIASM  —  FRANKLIN  IN  PARIS.      307 

and  the  much  nobler  passage  in  which  they  main- 
tained that  all  governments  exist  only  for  the  benefit, 
and  derive  their  just  powers  from  the  consent,  of 
the  governed;  and  that  whenever  any  form  of  go- 
vernment becomes  destructive  to  the  ends  for  which 
government  was  instituted,  it  is  the  right  of  the 
people  to  alter  or  abolish  it,  awoke  a  mighty  echo  on 
the  Continent. 

It  was  a  strange  thing  to  see  the  public  opinion  of 
a  purely  despotic  country  thrilling  with  indignation  be- 
cause England  had  violated  the  constitutional  liberties 
of  her  colonies ;  especially  strange  when  it  is  remembered 
that  one  of  the  great  American  grievances  was  that 
England  had  perpetuated  in  Canada  something  of  the 
French  system  of  colonial  government.  Of  the  sincerity 
of  the  enthusiasm,  however,  there  can  be  little  question. 
The  very  judicious  selection  of  Franklin  as  the  chief 
representative  of  the  colonies  greatly  added  to  it.  His 
works  were  well  known  in  France  through  several 
translations ;  his  great  discovery  of  the  lightning  con- 
ductor had  been  made  when  the  Parisian  enthusiasm  for 
physical  science  was  at  its  height,  and  it  was  soon  found 
that  the  man  was  at  least  as  remarkable  as  his  works. 
Dressed  with  an  almost  Quaker  simplicity,  his  thin  grey 
hair  not  powdered  according  to  the  general  fashion,  but 
covered  with  a  fur  cap,  he  formed  a  singular  and  strik- 
ing figure  in  the  brilliant  and  artificial  society  of  the 
French  capital.  His  eminently  venerable  appearance, 
the  quaint  quiet  dignity  of  his  manner,  the  mingled  wit 
and  wisdom  of  his  conversation,  the  unfailing  tact, 
shrewdness,  and  self-possession  which  he  showed,  whether 
he  was  negotiating  with  French  statesmen  or  moving 
in  a  social  sphere  so  unlike  that  from  which  he  had 
arisen,  impressed  all  who  came  in  contact  with  him. 
Vergennes  declared  him  to  be  the  only  American  in 
whom  he  put  full  confidence.  Turgot,  in  an  immortal 


308   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xin. 

line,  described  him  as  having  torn  the  lightning  from 
heaven  and  the  sceptre  from  the  tyrant's  hand. l  Voltaire 
complimented  him  in  his  most  graceful  phrases,  and  ex- 
pressed his  pride  that  he  was  himself  able  to  address 
him  '  in  the  language  of  Franklin/  Poets,  philosophers, 
men  and  women  of  fashion,  were  alike  at  his  feet,  and 
all  the  enthusiasms  and  Utopias  of  France  seemed  to 
gather  round  that  calm  American,  who,  under  the  ap- 
pearance of  extreme  simplicity,  concealed  the  astuteness 
of  the  most  accomplished  diplomatist,  and  who  never  for 
a  moment  lost  sight  of  the  object  at  which  he  aimed. 
His  correspondence  and  his  journal  show  clearly  the 
half-amused,  half-contemptuous  satisfaction  with  which 
he  received  the  homage  that  was  bestowed  on  him.  It 
became  the  fashion  to  represent  him  as  the  ideal  philo- 
sopher of  Rousseau.  He  was  compared  by  his  admirers 
to  Phocion,  to  Socrates,  to  William  Tell,  and  even  to 
Jesus  Christ.  His  head,  accompanied  by  the  line  of 
Turgot,  appeared  everywhere  on  snuffboxes  and  medal- 
lions and  rings.  He  was  the  idol  alike  of  the  populace 
and  of  society,  and  he  used  all  his  influence  to  hurry 
France  into  war.2 

A  few  warning  voices  were  heard,  but  they  were 
little  heeded.  Necker,  who  now  managed  the  finances, 
saw  as  clearly  as  Turgot  had  seen  before  him  that  con- 
tinued peace  was  a  vital  interest  to  France  and  to  her 
dynasty,  for  it  alone  could  avert  the  impending  bank- 

1  The  famous  line,   'Eripuit          According  to   Condorcet  (Vie 

ccelofulmen,  sceptrumque  tyran-  de  Turgot},  Turgot  wrote  :  'Eri- 

nis,' was  perhaps  suggested  by  a  puit  coelo  fulmen,  mox  sceptra 

passage  in  Mamlius  :  tyrannis.' 

«  Solvitque     animis     miracula          *  Some     curious    particulars 

rerum,  ahout  Franklin's  French  life  will 

Eripuitque  Jovi  fulmen,  vir-  be  found  in  a  very  able  article  on 

esque  tonandi,  Franklin  in  M.PhilareteChasles' 

E4  sonitum  ventis  concessit  Le  Dix-huitieme  Siecleen  Angle- 

nubibus  ignem.'  i.  103-106.  terre. 


en.  xni.        WARNING  VOICES — MAIIIE  ANTOINETTE.          309 

ruptcy.  Even  Vergennes  hesitated  to  strike  the  fatal 
blow  till  it  had  been  somewhat  more  clearly  demon- 
strated that  a  reconciliation  of  England  with  her  colo- 
nies was  no  longer  to  be  feared.  When  at  the  request 
of  Franklin  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
translated,  and  scattered,  with  the  permission  of  the 
ministers,  broadcast  over  France,  Mirabeau,  who  was 
then  a  prisoner  at  Yincennes,  asked  whether  those  who 
were  so  anxious  to  ally  themselves  with  the  revolted 
colonies  had  really  read  or  understood  this  Declaration, 
and  had  considered  whether  on  its  principles  any  Euro- 
pean governments,  except  those  of  England,  Holland, 
and  Switzerland,  could  be  deemed  legitimate.  When 
a  few  months  later  the  French  ministers  informed 
England  that  the  Americans  had  become  independent 
by  virtue  of  their  Declaration,  Lafayette  remarked  with 
a  smile  that  they  had  announced  a  principle  of  national 
sovereignty  which  they  would  soon  hear  of  at  home.1 
The  King  hesitated  much,  but  Marie  Antoinette,  who 
caught  up  every  fashion  and  enthusiasm  with  the  care- 
less levity  of  youth,  assisted  the  American  cause  with 
all  her  influence,  little  dreaming  that  she  was  giving 
the  last  great  impulse  to  that  revolutionary  spirit  which 
was  so  soon  to  lead  her  to  misery  and  to  death.  '  Give 
me  good  news/  she  said  to  Lafayette,  when  he  visited 
her  in  1779,  '  of  our  good  Americans,  of  our  dear  re- 
publicans.' 2  Paine's  *  Common  Sense/  with  all  its 
denunciations  of  monarchy,  was  translated  into  French, 


1  Rocquain,  L'Esprit  Rdvolu-  commune    de    la  France  et  de 

tionnaire  avant   la  Rdvohition,  l'Am£rique,i.ni.     Paine,  many 

pp.  370,  371 ;  M6moires  de  La-  years  later,  wrote :   '  It  is  both 

fayette,  i.  50.  justice  and  gratitude  to  say  that 

*  '  Dites-moi  de  bonnes  nou-  it  was  the  Queen  of  France  who 

velles  de  nos  bons  Americains,  gave  the  cause    of    America   a 

de  nos  chers  r6publicains.'   This  fashion  at  the  French  Court.' — 

was  told  by  Lafayette  to  Augus-  Rights  of  Man. 
tin  Thierry.   See  Circourt,  Action 


310    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  xnr. 

and  was,  if  possible,  even  more  popular  in  France  than 
in  America.1  Few  things  in  history  are  more  tragical 
than  the  mingled  gaiety  and  enthusiasm  with  which 
the  brilliant  society  of  Versailles  plunged  into  the 
stream  that  was  to  sweep  them  so  speedily  to  the  abyss. 
As  yet,  however,  there  were  few  misgivings,  and  Ameri- 
can observers  believed  and  hoped  that  if  a  revolution 
broke  out  it  would  not  be  in  Paris  but  in  London. 
'  The  King  and  Queen/  wrote  John  Adams  from  Paris 
in  1778,  '  are  greatly  beloved  here.  Every  day  shows 
fresh  proof  of  it.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Channel 
there  is  a  king  who  is  in  a  fair  way  to  be  the  object  of 
opposite  sentiments  to  a  nation  if  he  is  not  at  present.'2 
One  of  the  chief  signs  of  the  prevailing  enthusiasm 
was  the  multitude  of  soldiers  who  went  to  America  to 
enlist  in  the  army  of  the  insurgents.  '  I  am  well-nigh 
harassed  to  death,'  wrote  Deane  in  1776,  '  with  appli- 
cations of  officers  to  go  out  to  America.'  c  Had  I  ten 
ships  here  I  could  fill  them  all  with  passengers  for 
America.'  '  The  desire  that  military  officers  here  of  all 
ranks  have,'  wrote  the  commissioners  a  few  months 
later,  *  of  going  into  the  service  of  the  United  States  is 
so  general  and  so  strong  as  to  be  quite  amazing.  We 
are  hourly  fatigued  with  their  applications  and  offers 
which  we  are  obliged  to  refuse.'3  Most  of  them,  no 
doubt,  were  mere  soldiers  of  fortune,  animated  only  by 
love  of  adventure,  hatred  of  England,  or  hope  of  higher 
rank  or  pay  than  they  could  gain  at  home ;  but  a  few 
were  of  the  purest  type  of  enthusiasts  for  liberty. 
Among  these  the  most  conspicuous  was  Lafayette,  who 
abandoned  a  great  fortune  and  position  and  a  young 
wife  to  serve  gratuitously  in  the  army  of  Washington, 


1  American  Diplomatic    Cor-      and  his  Wife,  p.  350. 
respondence,  i.  29,  30.  3  American  Diplomatic    Cor> 

2  Familiar  Letters  of  J.  Adams      respondence,  i.  71,  93,  276. 


cii.  xiii.  THE   FOREIGN   OFFICERS.  311 

and  who  was  appointed  a  major-general  at  the  age  of 
nineteen. 

The  great  majority  of  these  foreigners  were  French, 
but  there  were  a  few  of  other  nationalities.  Among 
the  latter  were  Pulaski,  who  had  distinguished  himself 
beyond  all  other  men  in  resisting  the  first  partition  of 
Poland,  and  Kosciusko,  the  hero  of  her  later  struggle. 
Steuben,  a  veteran  German  soldier,  who  had  served 
under  Frederick  through  the  Seven  Years'  War,  did 
more  than  perhaps  any  other  single  person  to  discipline 
and  organise  the  army  of  Washington.  Baron  Kalb, 
who,  like  many  other  Germans,  had  fought  with  much 
distinction  under  the  banner  of  Marshal  Saxe,  had 
visited  America  in  1768  as  the  secret  agent  of  Choiseul, 
and  when  the  war  broke  out  he  hastened  to  place  his 
sword  at  the  disposal  of  the  Americans.  Another  officer 
of  whom  great  hopes  were  entertained  was  Conway,  an 
Irishman  in  the  French  service,  who  was  esteemed  '  one 
of  the  most  skilful  disciplinarians  in  France,'  but  whose 
intriguing  and  ambitious  character  produced  one  of  the 
most  serious  of  the  many  divisions  in  the  American 
army.1 

This  incursion  of  foreign  soldiers  into  America  was 
by  no  means  without  embarrassments.  It  was  not  at 
all  in  the  character  of  the  American  troops  to  place 
themselves  under  the  command  of  strangers,  or  to  give 
up  to  strangers  the  most  lucrative  posts  in  their  army, 
and  the  swarms  of  French  soldiers  who  came  over  with 
promises  of  high  rank  given  them  by  Deane  excited 
endless  jealousy  and  difficulty.  Great  numbers  of 
American  officers  at  once  resigned.  General  Du  Cou- 

1  American  Diplomatic    Cor-  lish  by  Greene  (G.  W.),  in  his 

rcspondence,  i.  71-73,  76,  97,  98,  interesting  little    book  on   The 

295,  296.     The  lives  of  Steuben  German  Element  in  the  War  of 

and  of  Kalb  have  been  written  Independence, 
in  German  by  Kapp,  and  in  Eng- 

22 


312   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  xsn. 

dray,  who  came  out  with  a  large  party  of  French  officers, 
was  drowned  in  the  Schuylkill,  and  his  followers,  after 
much  angry  contention  about  the  rate  of  pay,  declared 
that  the  terms  of  their  engagement  were  broken,  and 
returned  to  France.  An  attempt  was  made  to  enlist  a 
brigade  of  French  Canadians,  and  to  employ  the  French 
officers  in  organising  it,  but  it  utterly  failed,  and  no 
class  of  Canadians  showed  the  smallest  disposition  to 
throw  off  the  English  rule.1  In  the  eighteenth  century 
the  type  of  mercenary  soldier  who  sought  pay  and 
adventure  in  foreign  armies  was  a  very  common  one, 
and  men  of  this  stamp  were  often  more  than  commonly 
rapacious  and  unprincipled.  Numbers  of  officers, 
through  their  ignorance  of  English,  were  wholly  unable 
to  communicate  with  the  troops  they  aspired  to  com- 
mand, while  the  leading  authorities  in  America  who 
were  obliged  to  organise  the  public  service  were  often, 
if  not  usually,  absolutely  ignorant  of  French.  Wash- 
ington himself  was  completely  so,  though  he  found  time, 
in  the  midst  of  the  occupations  of  the  campaign,  to 
learn  enough  to  understand,  though  not  to  speak  it,2 
and  in  the  busiest  and  most  anxious  period  of  the 
struggle  John  Adams  wrote  to  his  wife  lamenting 
bitterly  that  he  had  not  her  knowledge  of  that  lan- 
guage, and  imploring  her  to  send  him  the  name  of  the 
author  of  her  '  thin  French  grammar  which  gives  the 
pronunciation  of  the  French  words  in  English  letters.'3 
It  needed  all  the  tact  and  skill  of  management 
which  Washington  eminently  possessed  to  surmount 
these  difficulties,  but  in  spite  of  every  drawback  the 


1  See,  on  these  difficulties,  Count  Fersen,  however,  who  had 

American  Diplomatic  Correspon-  interviews  with  Washington  in 

dence,  i.  336,  337,  346-349.  Oct.  1780,  says  he  neither  spoke 

Washington's  Works,  iv.  327-  nor  understood  French. — Lettres 

829,  419-425,  450-452  ;  v.  32-35.  du  C&mte  Fersen,  i.  40,  41. 

*  Sparks'sl/i/eo/  Washington.  3  Familiar  Letters,  p.  136, 


n.  xin.  THE   WINTER   OF   1776-7.  313 

presence  of  this  large  foreign  element  was  of  great  as- 
sistance to  the  Americans.  In  addition  to  several  excel- 
lent officers  who  had  fought  in  the  British  army  during 
the  conquest  of  Canada,  they  had  now  among  them 
many  veteran  soldiers  trained  in  the  very  best  armies 
of  the  Continent,  and  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  out  of 
29  major-generals  in  the  American  army,  no  less  than 
11  were  Europeans.1 

The  remainder  of  the  winter  of  1776-7,  after  the 
combat  of  Trenton,  passed  without  any  memorable  in- 
cident in  America.  The  English  remained  for  several 
months  absolutely  inactive  in  their  entrenchments,  and, 
to  the  unfeigned  astonishment  of  Washington,2  they 
made  no  attempt  to  regain  the  territory  they  had  lost, 
or  to  force  the  passage  of  the  Delaware  and  capture 
Philadelphia.  Washington,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
endeavouring  to  form  an  army,  and  his  letters  are  full 
of  bitter  complaints  of  the  want  of  patriotism  he  on  all 
sides  discovered.  In  New  Jersey,  it  is  true,  the  tide  of 
feeling  had  been  turned  by  the  outrages  of  the  British 
and  Hessian  troops.  The  New  Jersey  militia  were  in 
arms  against  the  British,  who  now  found  the  difficulties 
of  obtaining  provisions,  forage,  and  intelligence  greatly 
enhanced ;  but  the  laws  of  Congress  directing  the  States 
to  provide  specified  contingents  for  the  American  army 
were  almost  inoperative.  The  reluctance  to  enlist  was 
extreme,  and  the  delays  of  the  State  authorities 
threatened  the  utter  ruin  of  the  cause.  The  attempt  to 
enlist  troops  for  the  whole  duration  of  the  war  almost 
entirely  failed.  For  some  time  Washington  had  not 
more  than  1,500  men  in  his  camp,  while  the  English 
army  was  nearly  ten  times  as  numerous.3  The  theft  of 

1  Greene's  Historical  View  of  8  Eamsay,  Li.  1,  2.     See,  too, 

the  American  Revolution,  p.  283.  the  Cornwallis  Correspondence,!. 

*  Washington's  Works,  iv.  301,  29. 
340,  352. 


314:   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xm. 

arms  by  the  soldiers  who  deserted  or  disbanded  them- 
selves had  been  carried  to  such  an  extent  that  it  had 
become  difficult  even  to  provide  the  soldiers  with  com- 
mon guns,  when  fortunately  in  March  the  first  great 
supplies  of  guns  and  military  stores  arrived  from 
France,  and  in  this  respect  restored  the  condition  of 
the  army.1  In  the  beginning  of  this  month  Washing- 
ton reckoned  the  army  of  Howe  in  the  Jerseys  at  not 
less  than  10,000  men,  while  his  own  army  was  4,000, 
nearly  all  '  raw  militia,  badly  officered,  and  under  no 
government.' 2  In  the  beginning  of  April  he  com- 
plained that  the  extravagant  bounties  given  by  different 
States  for  raising  bodies  of  men  upon  colonial  esta- 
blishments had  made  it  almost  impossible  to  procure 
them  for  the  continental  service,  as  '  the  men  are  taught 
to  set  a  price  upon  themselves,  and  refuse  to  turn  out 
except  that  price  be  paid/  '  How  I  am  to  oppose  them ' 
[the  British],  he  adds,  *  God  knows ;  for  excepting  a 
few  hundreds  from  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  and  Virginia, 
I  have  not  yet  received  a  man  of  the  new  continental 
levies/  3  Ten  days  later,  in  a  confidential  letter  to  his 
brother,  he  once  more  expressed  his  utter  astonishment 
at  the  continued  inactivity  of  General  Howe,  and  de- 
clared that  if  the  English  general  abstained  much 
longer  from  taking  advantage  of  the  extreme  weakness 
of  his  opponents  it  would  show  that  he  was  totally  unfit 
for  the  trust  that  was  reposed  in  him.4  In  the  begin- 
ning of  June  he  again  acknowledged  that  it  was  still 

1  Washington's  TForfcs,iv.337-  2  Ibid.  pp.  339,  340.     About  a 

339.     The  stealing  of  guns  con-  fortnight  later,  he   wrote    that 

tinued  to  be  a  great  evil  in  the  the  numbers  « fit  for  duty  '  were 

American  army.      In  July  1777  under  3,000,  of   whom   all  but 

Washington  again  complains  of  981  were  militia,  whose  term  of 

their  rarity,  though  the  importa-  service  would  expire  in  about  a 

fcion  of   arms  far  exceeded  the  fortnight.     Ibid.  p.  364. 

number  of  troops  raised  to  make  3  Ibid.  pp.  375,  376. 

use  of  them.     Ibid.  p.  477.  *  Ibid.  p.  387. 


CH.  xin.  AMERICAN  ARMY,    1777.  315 

'  impossible,  at  least  very  unlikely,  that  any  effectual 
opposition  can  be  given  to  the  British  army  with  the 
troops  we  have,  whose  numbers  diminish  more  by  de- 
sertion than  they  increase  by  enlistments.' l  If,  indeed, 
as  most  historians  are  accustomed  to  assume,  the  bulk 
of  the  American  people  were  really  on  the  side  of 
Washington,  their  apathy  at  this  time  is  almost  inex- 
plicable, and  it  could  only  be  surpassed  by  the  stupen- 
dous imbecility  of  the  English,  who  appear  to  have  been 
almost  wholly  ignorant  of  the  state  of  the  American 
army,  who  remained  waiting  for  reinforcements  from 
England  long  after  the  season  for  -active  operations  had 
begun  and  at  a  time  when  there  was  scarcely  any 
enemy  to  oppose  them,  and  who,  by  burning  and  plun- 
dering houses,  destroying  crops,  insulting  and  outraging 
peaceful  inhabitants,  were  rapidly  turning  their  friends 
into  foes. 

One  great  cause  of  the  slow  organisation  of  the 
Americans  was  the  difficulty  of  appointing  the  principal 
officers.  In  addition  to  the  numerous  foreigners  who 
were  to  be  provided  for,  great  perplexity  arose  from  the 
claim  of  every  State  to  have  a  proportion  of  general 
officers  corresponding  to  the  number  of  troops  it  fur- 
nished.2 In  the  absence  of  any  universally  recognised 
superior,  conflicting  claims  and  pretensions  had  free 
course ;  and  several  admirable  letters  remain  in  which 
Washington  endeavoured  to  soothe  the  resentment  or 
the  vanity  of  neglected  officers.  John  Adams,  who 
visited  the  army  in  the  summer  of  1777,  was  much 
shocked  at  the  disunion  he  found  prevailing,  and  in  a 
letter  to  his  wife  he  expressed  himself  on  the  subject 
wifch  great  bitterness.  4I  am  wearied  to  death,'  he 
wrote,  '  with  the  wrangles  between  military  officers 
high  and  low.  They  quarrel  like  cats  and  dogs.  They 

1  Washington's  Works,  iv.  447.  2  Ibid.  pp.  378. 


316   ENGLAND  EN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xm. 

wony  one  another  like  mastiffs,  scrambling  for  rank 
and  pay  like  apes  for  nuts.5 1 

In  the  spring  and  early  summer  a  few  inconsiderable 
expeditions  took  place  in  different  quarters.  The  Eng- 
lish destroyed  large  quantities  of  American  stores  at  a 
place  called  Peeks-Kill,  about  fifty  miles  from  New 
York,  and  at  Danbury  in  Connecticut.  The  Americans 
destroyed  a  quantity  of  English  stores  in  Long  Island, 
and  a  small  party  of  volunteers  passing  into  Rhode 
Island  succeeded  in  surprising  and  taking  prisoner 
General  Prescott,  who  was  ultimately  exchanged  for 
General  Lee.  In  June,  Howe,  having  received  some 
reinforcements  from  England,  abandoned  his  quarters 
at  Brunswick,  but  he  made  no  effort  to  march  upon 
the  Delaware.  After  much  complex  manoeuvring  and 
several  skirmishes  which  it  is  not  here  necessary  to 
recount,  he  returned  to  his  old  quarters  at  Staten  Island, 
despatched  a  portion  of  his  troops  to  New  York,  and 
then  sailed  by  a  circuitous  route  to  Chesapeake  Bay, 
where  he  landed  with  about  16,000  men  at  a  point 
some  sixty  miles  from  Philadelphia. 

If  the  States  had  done  what  was  expected  from  them, 
he  would  have  been  at  least  greatly  outnumbered,  but  it 
was  estimated  by  Galloway,  and  probably  not  untruly, 
that,  of  the  66,000  men  voted  by  Congress  for  the  con- 
tinental service  of  1777,  they  did  not  bring  into  the  field 
16,000,  and  that  not  half  of  these  had  enlisted  volun- 
tarily.2 Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and  New  Hamp- 
shire—the States  where  the  anti-English  spirit  might 
have  been  expected  to  be  strongest — were  obliged  to 
pass  laws  drafting  militiamen  to  serve  by  compulsion  as 
substitutes  in  the  continental  army  for  twelve  months.3 
There  were  also  great  numbers  of  '  redemptioners,'  or 
men  who  had  bound  themselves  to  serve  their  masters 

1  Familiar  Letters,  p.  276. 

2  Galloway's  Examination,  pp.  18, 19.         »  Hildreth,  iii.  189. 


CH.  XIH.     PHILADELPHIA.      WASHINGTON'S   DEFEATS.        317 

for  a  specified  number  of  years,  and  who  were  freed  from 
their  obligations  if  they  would  enlist  in  the  American 
army.1  Even  Boston  had  lost  much  of  her  old  enthu- 
siasm,2 and  every  State  fell  far  short  of  its  quota. 
Washington  endeavoured  to  arrest  the  march  of  Howe, 
but  on  September  11,  1777,  he  was  totally  defeated  in 
the  battle  of  Brandy  wine.  His  army  fled  in  utter  con- 
fusion to  Chester,  and  Du  Portail,  a  French  officer  who 
was  then  in  the  American  service,  in  reporting  the  cir- 
cumstances to  the  French  War  Office,  expressed  his  firm 
conviction  that  '  if  the  English  had  followed  their  ad- 
vantage that  day,  Washington's  army  would  have  been 
spoken  of  no  more.'  3 

As  usual,  however,  Howe  did  nothing  to  com- 
plete his  victory,  and  the  American  army  was  able 
to  re-form  itself.  The  revolutionists  took  great  pains 
to  intimidate  the  loyal  inhabitants  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  they  sent  several  of  the  principal  inhabitants 
of  Philadelphia  prisoners  to  Virginia.4  On  September 
26,  Howe  entered  Philadelphia,  and  appears  to  have 
been  warmly  received  both  in  the  town  and  in  its 
neighbouring  country.  He  left  four  regiments  to  occupy 
the  city,  but  posted  the  bulk  of  his  army  at  German- 
town,  about  ten  miles  distant.  On  October  4,  Washing- 
ton, having  received  large  reinforcements  of  militia  from 
Maryland  and  New  Jersey,  surprised  this  post,  but  after 
an  obstinate  battle  he  was  again  utterly  defeated.  The 
British,  with  the  assistance  of  some  men-of-war,  then 


1  Hildreth,  iii.  190.  swered  :  « If  it  is  not  Toryism,  it 

2  Adams    writes    (March    31,  is  a  spirit  of  avarice   and  con 
1777):   'We  have  reports  here  tempt  of  authority,  an  inordinate 
not  very  favourable  to  the  town  love  of  gain,  that  prevails  not 
of  Boston.     It  is  said  that  dissi-  only   in  town  but  everywhere  I 
pation  prevails,  and  that  Toryism  look  or  hear  from.' — Ibid.  p.  261. 
abounds  and  is  openly  avowed  at  3  Jones 's  His tory  of  New  York, 
the    coffee-houses.'  —  Familiar  i.  197. 

Letters,  p.  252.    His  wife  an-  4  Ramsay,  ii.  8.  9. 


318   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUEY.  en.  xm, 

proceeded  to  open  the  navigation  of  the  Delaware,  at- 
tacking the  powerful  forts  which  the  Americans  had 
constructed  to  command  it,  and  though  they  were  once 
very  gallantly  repulsed,  they  were  in  the  end  completely 
successful.  Washington  still  continued,  at  the  head  of 
a  regular  army,  to  maintain  himself  in  Pennsylvania, 
but  the  capital  was  in  the  undisputed  possession  of  the 
English,  the  Congress  was  obliged  to  fly  to  Lancaster 
and  Yorktown,  the  army  of  the  Americans  was  de- 
moralised by  two  great  defeats,  and  the  communica- 
tions between  the  English  fleet  and  army  were  fully 
established. 

The  position  of  Washington  at  this  time  was  in  all 
respects  deplorable.  As  early  as  March  he  had  written 
to  General  Schuyler :  *  The  disaffection  of  Penosylvania, 
I  fear,  is  beyond  anything  you  have  conceived,' 1  and  the 
experience  of  the  campaign  fully  justified  his  apprehen- 
sions. General  Howe,  during  the  many  months  his  army 
was  stationed  at  Philadelphia,  never  found  the  smallest 
difficulty  in  obtaining  from  the  people  abundance  of  fresh 
provisions.  Profiting  by  his  experience  in  New  Jersey, 
he  had  given  stringent  orders,  which  appear  to  have  been 
on  the  whole  complied  with,  that  no  peaceful  inhabitants 
should  be  molested ;  he  even  despatched  a  severe  remon- 
strance to  Washington,  who  had  destroyed  some  mills 
in  the  neighbourhood ;  and  he  succeeded  without  diffi- 
culty in  establishing  perfectly  amicable  relations  with 
the  inhabitants.  It  would,  perhaps,  be  an  exaggeration 
to  say  that  the  active  loyalists  were  the  true  representa- 
tives of  Pennsylvanian  feeling ;  but  it  is,  in  my  opinion, 
not  doubtful  that  the  sympathies  of  this  great  and 
wealthy  province  were  much  more  on  the  side  of  the 
Crown  than  on  the  side  of  the  Kevolution.  Had  the 
Pennsylvanians  really  regarded  the  English  as  invade rs 


>  Washington's  Works,  iv.  300. 


en.  xin.    PENNSYLVANIA  SYMPATHY  FOR  ENGLAND.       319 

or  oppressors,  the  presence  of  an  English  army  in  their 
capital  would  most  certainly  have  roused  them  to  pas- 
sionate resistance.  But,  in  truth,  it  was  never  found 
possible  to  bring  into  the  field  more  than  a  tenth  part  of 
the  nominal  number  of  the  Pennsylvanian  militia,  and 
the  Pennsylvanian  quota  in  the  continental  regiments 
was  never  above  one-third  full,  and  soon  sank  to  a  much 
lower  point.1  Washington  complained  bitterly  that  he 
could  obtain  no  military  intelligence,  the  population  of 
whole  districts  being  *  to  a  man  disaffected ' — disaffected 
*  past  all  belief.' 2  Millers  refused  to  grind  corn  for  his 
army.  Provisions  of  every  kind  were  systematically 
withheld,  and  often  only  obtained  by  forced  requisitions 
or  from  other  provinces.  Carriages  could  rarely  be 
obtained  except  by  force,  and  Washington  candidly 
described  himself  as  in  an  enemy's  country.3  No  Ameri- 
can of  any  military  or  political  eminence  could  separate 
himself  from  the  army  in  Pennsylvania  without  great 
danger  of  being  seized  by  the  inhabitants  and  delivered 
up  to  the  English.4  As  Lafayette  bitterly  complained, 
there  were  whole  regiments  of  Americans  in  the  British 
army,  and  in  every  colony  there  was  a  far  greater  num- 
ber who,  without  actually  taking  up  arms,  made  it  their 
main  object  ;  to  injure  the  friends  of  liberty  and  to  give 
useful  intelligence  to  those  of  despotism.' 6 

The  American  army  had  sunk  into  a  condition  of 
appalling  destitution.  In  September,  Washington  wrote 
that  '  at  least  1,000  men  were  barefooted  and  have  per- 
formed the  marches  in  that  condition  ; ' 6  and  in  the 
depth  of  winter  the  misconduct  or  inefficiency  of  the 
commissaries  appointed  by  the  Congress,  and  the  general 

1  Washington's  Works,  v.  96,  loway'a  Examination,   pp.    25- 

146.     Hildreth,  iii.  217.  27. 

*  Washington's  Works,  v.  69,  4  Life  of  Joseph  Reed,  i.  359. 
198.                                                             *  Mem-  de  Lafayette,  i.  16. 

•  Ibid,  pp  187,  197-199.  Gal-          •  Washington's  Works,  v.  71. 


320   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xm 

disaffection  of  the  people,  had  reduced  the  revolutionary 
forces  to  a  degree  of  misery  that  almost  led  to  their  de- 
struction. On  one  occasion  they  were  three  successive 
days  without  bread.  On  another,  they  were  two  days 
entirely  without  meat.  On  a  third,  it  was  announced 
that  there  was  not  in  the  camp  *  a  single  hoof  of  any 
kind  to  slaughter,  and  not  more  than  twenty-five  barrels 
of  flour.'  There  was  no  soap  or  vinegar.  '  Few  men ' 
had  '  more  than  one  shirt,  many  only  the  moiety  of  one, 
and  some  none  at  all ; '  and,  besides  a  number  of  men 
confined  in  hospitals  or  farmers'  houses  for  want  of  shoes, 
there  were  on  a  single  day  2,898  men  in  the  camp  unfit 
for  duty  because  they  were  '  barefoot  and  otherwise 
naked.'  In  the  piercing  days  of  December,  numbers  of 
the  troops  were  compelled  to  sit  up  all  night  around  the 
fire,  having  no  blankets  to  cover  them,  and  it  became 
evident  that  unless  a  change  quickly  took  place  the  army 
must  either  '  starve,  dissolve,  or  disperse,  in  order  to  ob- 
tain subsistence  in  the  best  manner  they  can/  In  three 
weeks  of  this  month  the  army,  without  any  fighting,  had 
lost  by  hardship  and  exposure  near  2,000  men.1  So 
large  a  proportion  of  the  troops  were  barefoot  that  ( their 
marches  might  be  traced  by  the  blood  from  their  feet.' 2 
Yet  week  after  week  rolled  on,  and  still,  amid  unabated 
sufferings,  a  large  proportion  of  those  brave  men  held 
together  and  took  up  their  winter  quarters,  diminished 
indeed  in  numbers,  and  more  than  once  defeated  in 
the  field,  but  still  unbroken  and  undismayed,  within 
a  day's  march  of  a  greatly  superior  army  of  British 
soldiers. 

The  time  was,  indeed,  well  fitted  to  winnow  the  chaff 
from  the  grain  ;  and  few  braver  and  truer  men  were  ever 
collected  around  a  great  commander  than  those  who  re- 


1  Washington's  Works,  v.  193,          2  Ibid.  p.  329.     See,  too,  the 
197,  199.  Mem.  de  Lafayette,  i.  22. 


CH.  XIIT.  VALLEY  FORGE.   THE  NORTHERN  ARMY.     321 

mained  with  Washington  during  that  dreary  winter  in 
Valley  Forge,  some  twenty  miles   from   Philadelphia. 

*  For  some  days  past,'  wrote  their  commander  on  Feb- 
ruary 16,  1778,  'there  has  been  little  less  than  a  famine 
in  the  camp ;  a  part  of  the  army  has  been  a  week  with- 
out any  kind  of  flesh,  and  the  rest  three  or  four  days. 
Naked   and   starving   as   they  are,  we  cannot  enough 
admire  the  incomparable  patience  and  fidelity  of  the 
soldiery,  that  they  have  not  been  ere  this  excited  by 
their   sufferings   to   a  general  mutiny   and  dispersion. 
Strong  symptoms,  however,  of  discontent  have  appeared 
in  particular  instances,  and  nothing  but  the  most  active 
efforts  everywhere,  can  long  avert  so  shocking  a  cata- 
strophe.' l     Many,  indeed,    fell   away.     '  No   day,    nor 
scarce  an  hour  passes,'  wrote  Washington  in  December, 

*  without  the  offer  of  a  resigned  commission.'  2     Many 
fled  to  the  country  and  to  their  friends,  and  not  less 
than  3,000  deserters  came  from  the  American  camp  to 
the  British  army  at  Philadelphia.3 

But  while  the  American  army  in  Pennsylvania 
seemed  thus  on  the  eve  of  dissolution,  and  owed  its  safety 
chiefly  to  the  amazing  apathy  of  the  English,  an  event 
had  happened  in  the  North  which  changed  the  whole 
fortune  of  the  war,  and  made  the  triumph  of  the  Revo- 
lution a  certainty.  We  left  the  greater  part  of  the 
northern  American  army  posted  in  the  strong  fort  of 
Ticonderoga  and  in  a  series  of  neighbouring  entrench- 
ments, which,  it  was  believed,  might  be  long  maintained 
against  the  enemy.  General  Carleton  had  been  lately 
Buperseded  by  General  Burgoyne  in  the  command  of  the 
English  army  in  those  quarters.  Burgoyne  was  already 
well  known  to  fame.  He  had  served  with  distinction  in 


1  Washington's  Works,  v.  239.          *  Galloway  '^Examination,  pp. 
8  Ibid.  p.  201.  19,  20. 


322    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  OB.  xni. 

the  war  in  Portugal.  He  had  been  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment and  a  frequent  speaker,  and  he  had  attained  much 
reputation  in  another  and  very  different  field,  as  the 
author  of  an  exceedingly  popular  comedy,  called  the 
'  Heiress/  He  was  esteemed  a  good  soldier  and  a  man 
of  much  general  ability  and  ambition,  though  not  equally 
distinguished  for  the  rectitude  of  his  judgment.  In 
June  1777  he  marched  from  St.  John's  at  the  head  of  a 
well-appointed  army  of  nearly  8,000  men,  about  half  of 
them  foreigners ;  and  he  soon  after  summoned  the 
Indians  who  had  taken  arms,  to  a  war  feast,  and  in  an 
emphatic  speech  impressed  upon  them  the  duty  of  hu- 
manity in  war,  offered  a  reward  for  every  prisoner  brought 
in  alive  by  the  savages,  and  threatened  severe  punish- 
ments against  all  who  were  guilty  of  outrages  against 
old  men,  women,  children,  or  prisoners.  He  afterwards 
issued  a  proclamation  to  the  insurgents,  which  was 
greatly  and  justly  blamed.  He  enumerated  in  highly 
coloured  terms  the  crimes  which  had  been  committed 
against  the  loyalists,  promised  impunity  and  protection 
to  all  who  would  lay  down  their  arms,  but  threatened 
those  who  resisted  with  the  most  terrible  war,  and  re- 
minded them  that  a  word  from  him  would  abandon  them 
to  the  ferocity  of  the  Indians. 

The  advance  upon  Ticonderoga  was  made  by  land 
and  water,  and  the  army  and  fleet  arrived  before  it  on 
July  1.  Works  were  speedily  thrown  up.  Batteries 
were  planted ;  a  hill  which  commanded  the  chief  forti- 
fications of  the  Americans,  and  which  had  been  left 
unguarded,  was  seized ;  and  General  St.  Clair,  who 
commanded  the  American  forces,  having  hastily  sum- 
moned a  council,  it  was  agreed  that  the  whole  army 
could  only  be  saved  from  capture  by  an  instant  eva- 
cuation of  the  fortress  and  of  all  the  adjoining  woiks. 
Congress  had  been  already  informed  that  between 
13,000  and  14,000  men  were  required  for  their  de- 


CH.  xin.  EVACUATION    OF   TICONDEROGA.  323 

fence,  and  less  than  3,500  were  left  to  guard  them 
against  an  English  force  which  was  much  larger  than 
the  Americans  had  anticipated.  On  the  night  of  July  5 
the  Americans  precipitately  abandoned  the  fortification. 
Their  flight  was  disastrous  in  the  extreme.  Ninety- 
three  cannon  were  left  in  Ticonderoga.  The  chief  part 
of  the  provisions  and  stores  were  embarked  on  200 
boats  and  despatched  up  the  South  River  to  Skenes- 
borough,  but  on  the  morning  of  the  6th  the  English 
fleet  hastened  in  their  pursuit,  burst  through  a  ponder- 
ous boom  which  had  been  constructed  to  impede  its 
progress,  overtook  the  American  flotilla,  burnt  three 
galleys,  captured  two  others,  and  took  or  destroyed  the 
greater  portion  of  the  stores  and  provisions.  The  Ameri- 
can array  which  retreated  by  land  was  rapidly  pursued, 
and  the  rearguard,  consisting  of  1,200  men  under 
Colonel  Warren,  was  overtaken  and  almost  anni- 
hilated. It  is  said  that  not  more  than  ninety  men  re- 
joined the  ranks.  St.  Clair  succeeded,  however,  after 
a  rapid  march  of  seven  days,  in  gaining  Fort  Edward, 
where  Schuyler  was  stationed  with  the  remainder  of 
the  Northern  army.  The  combined  forces  of  the  Ameri- 
cans now  numbered  4,400  men,  including  militia,  and 
they  hastily  fled  before  the  approaching  army  of  Bur- 
goyne  in  the  direction  of  Albany.1 

The  evacuation  of  Ticonderoga,  and  the  crushing 
disasters  that  immediately  followed  it,  struck  a  panir* 
through  New  England  which  had  hardly  been  equalled 
when  New  York  or  Philadelphia  was  taken.  The 
strongest  post  in  the  American  possession  had  fallen 
almost  without  a  blow,  and  it  appeared  for  a  time  as  if 
the  design  which  the  English  generals  were  seeking  to 
accomplish  would  be  speedily  attained.  It  was  the 
object  of  Burgoyne,  in  co-operation  with  Clinton,  who 

1  Ramsay,  Stedman,  Hildreth. 


324:        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     CH.  xixi. 

was  stationed  at  New  York,  and  with  Howe,  who  was 
stationed  at  Philadelphia,  by  occupying  the  whole  line 
of  the  Hudson,  to  sever  New  England  from  the  Central 
and  Southern  States,  and,  by  thus  isolating  the  part  of 
America  which  was  seriously  disaffected,  to  reduce  the 
whole  contest  to  narrow  limits.  Washington  wrote  in 
great  alarm  describing  the  evacuation  as  unjustifiable 
and  almost  inexplicable,  and  John  Adams  declared  that 
the  Americans  would  never  learn  to  defend  a  post  till 
they  had  shot  one  of  their  generals.  Charges  not  only  of 
incapacity  but  of  treachery  were  freely  made.  Schuyler 
was  deprived  of  his  command  and  replaced  by  Gates, 
who,  as  a  New  Englander,  was  more  acceptable  to  the 
soldiers.  Such  small  reinforcements  as  could  be  raised 
were  hastily  despatched,  and  with  them  was  Lincoln, 
who  was  very  popular  with  the  Massachusetts  militia, 
and  Benedict  Arnold,  whose  high  military  qualities  were 
now  generally  recognised.  The  country  into  which  the 
English  had  plunged  was  an  extremely  difficult  one, 
full  of  swamps,  morasses,  and  forests,  but  at  length  on 
July  30  the  Hudson  was  reached. 

But  by  this  time  the  first  panic  had  subsided,  and  a 
spirit  of  resistance  had  arisen  wholly  unlike  anything 
the  British  had  yet  encountered  during  the  war.  The 
militia  of  New  England  and  of  the  disaffected  portions 
of  New  York  were  called  to  arms,  and  they  responded 
with  alacrity  to  the  summons.  It  was  partly  a  genuine 
enthusiasm  for  the  cause,  for  the  New  Englanders  had 
thrown  themselves  into  the  Revolution  with  an  earnest- 
ness which  was  almost  wholly  wanting  in  New  Jersey 
and  Pennsylvania,  and  their  keen  intelligence  fully 
realised  the  importance  of  the  crisis.  It  was  partly 
also  the  dread  of  Indian  incursions,  and  the  many  in- 
stances of  Indian  atrocities  perpetrated  under  the  shelter 
of  the  English  flag,  which  roused,  as  they  always  roused, 
the  dormant  energies  of  the  people.  The  American  army 


en.  xin.  >  BURGOYNE'S  ARMY.  325 

soon  rose  to  more  than  13,000  men.1  Burgoyne  found 
himself  enormously  outnumbered  in  the  heart  of  a  coun- 
try where  the  natural  difficulties  of  obtaining  provisions^ 
preserving  communications,  procuring  intelligence,  and 
moving  troops  were  immense.  Two  isolated  detach- 
ments of  German  troops,  under  Colonel  Baum  and 
Colonel  Breyman,  accompanied  by  some  Indians  and 
by  some  loyalists,  were  totally  defeated  near  Benning- 
ton,  with  a  loss  of  600  or  800  men,  and  of  four  cannon. 
An  attempt  made  by  another  separate  expedition  to 
capture  a  small  fort  called  Fort  Stanwix  failed,  after 
some  severe  fighting,  in  the  course  of  which  many 
wounded  and  prisoners  were  brutally  murdered  by  In- 
dians in  the  English  service.  False  intelligence  of  a 
defeat  of  Burgoyne,  and  exaggerated  accounts  of  the 
force  that  was  sent  to  relieve  the  fort,  induced  St.  Leger, 
who  commanded  the  expedition,  hastily  to  abandon  the 
siege,  and  his  artillery  and  stores  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  garrison.  But  still  Burgoyne  pressed  on,  and,  hav- 
ing with  great  difficulty  collected  provisions  for  thirty 
days,  he  crossed  the  Hudson,  marched  for  four  days 
along  its  banks,  and  on  September  19  he  encountered 
the  American  forces  at  Stillwater.  The  American  wing 
which  was  first  attacked  was  commanded  by  General 
Arnold,  who  appears  to  have  fought,  as  he  always  did, 
with  eminent  courage  and  skill.2  The  battle  was  fierce 
and  obstinate,  and  was  only  terminated,  after  about  four 

1  Eamsay,  pp.  11,  38.  all  other  occasions,  Benedict 
f  An  attempt  has  been  made  Arnold  showed  himself  an  ex- 
in  America,  supported  by  the  cellent  soldier.  See  the  Life  of 
authority  of  Mr.  Bancroft,  to  Benedict  Arnold  and  a  consider  - 
prove  that  Arnold  was  not  ac-  able  amount  of  additional  evi- 
tively  engaged  on  this  day.  Mr.  dence  in  a  pamphlet  called  Bene- 
Isaac  Arnold,  however,  the  re-  diet  Arnold  at  Saratoga  (re- 
cent biographer  of  Benedict  Ar-  printed  from  the  United  Service, 
nold,  appears  to  have  established  Sept.  1880),  by  Isaac  N.  Arnolrl. 
beyond  dispute  that  this  is  a  See,  too,  Stedman's  very  full 
mistake,  and  that  on  this,  as  on  account  of  the  campaign. 


32G   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  am. 

hours'  fighting,  by  the  approach  of  night.  The  English 
retained  the  field  of  battle,  but  all  the  real  advantages 
were  on  the  side  of  the  Americans.  The  dwindling  army 
of  the  English  was  reduced  by  between  500  and  600 
men,  while  the  loss  of  the  Americans  was  probably 
somewhat  smaller. 

The  hunting  season  of  the  Indians  had  now  begun, 
and  as  they  had  obtained  little  plunder  and  were  much 
dispirited  by  the  combats  of  Bennington  and  Still  water, 
they  began  rapidly  to  desert.  A  large  proportion  of 
the  Canadian  volunteers  followed  their  example.  Pro- 
visions were  beginning  to  run  short.  By  crossing  the 
Hudson  the  English  had  greatly  added  to  the  difficulty 
of  maintaining  their  communications  with  the  store- 
houses on  Lake  George.  An  expedition  was  planned 
by  Gates  and  Arnold  to  recover  Ticonderoga,  and  al- 
though it  failed  in  its  main  object,  it  succeeded  in  in- 
tercepting large  supplies  intended  for  the  English.  The 
army  of  Burgoyne  was  now  reduced  to  little  more  than 
5,000  men,  many  of  them  incapacitated  by  wounds  or 
sickness,  and  they  were  limited  to  half  the  usual  allow- 
ance of  provisions.  The  forage  was  soon  exhausted, 
and  the  horses  perished  in  numbers  through  hunger. 
The  only  hope  remaining  was  that  relief  might  arrive 
from  New  York,  and  Burgoyne  had  already  succeeded 
in  sending  a  message  to  Clinton  describing  his  situation, 
and  he  had  arranged  all  his  later  movements  with  a  view 
to  such  relief.  An  attempt  was  made  from  New  York 
to  effect  it,  but  the  relieving  army  never  reached  the 
unhappy  commander.  The  almost  certain  prospect  of 
capturing  a  British  army  elated  the  Americans  to  the 
highest  degree,  and  new  volunteers  rapidly  poured  in. 
On  October  7  another  desperate  fight  took  place ;  Arnold 
had  all  but  succeeded  in  capturing  the  British  lines, 
when  he  was  laid  low  by  a  severe  wound  ;  and  the 
British  lost,  besides  many  killed  and  wounded,  200 


CH.  XT ii.  CAPITULATION  OF  SARATOGA.  327 

prisoners  and  nine  pieces  of  cannon.  Next  day,  Bur- 
goyne  retired  to  Saratoga,  where  he  was  speedily  sur- 
rounded by  an  army  nearly  four  times  as  large  as  his 
own,  and  so  advantageously  posted  that  it  was  scarcely 
possible  to  attack  it.  Burgoyne  estimated  the  number 
of  his  own  men  who  were  still  capable  of  fighting  as  not 
more  than  3,500.*  All  communications  were  cut  off; 
the  hope  of  relief  from  New  York  was  almost  gone,  and 
the  small  amount  of  provisions  in  the  camp  was  nearly 
exhausted.  Burgoyne  refused,  even  in  this  extremity, 
to  yield  without  conditions,  but  on  October  17,  1777, 
the  memorable  convention  was  signed,  by  which  the 
whole  British  army,  with  all  its  arms  and  artillery,  were 
surrendered  to  the  enemy. 

The  number  of  men  who  surrendered,  including 
Canadians,  irregular  and  militia  troops,  camp  followers 
and  labourers,  was  about  5,800,  and  it  was  stipulated, 
among  other  things,  that  they  should  march  out  with 
the  honours  of  war,  and  that  they  should  be  permitted 
at  once  to  return  to  England  on  condition  of  not  serving 
again  in  North  America  during  the  war.  The  over- 
whelming nature  of  the  disaster  was  at  once  felt  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic.  Clinton,  who  had  captured  some 
forts  and  advanced  some  distance  along  the  Hudson  to 
the  relief  of  Burgoyne,  retired  to  New  York.  The 
small  garrison  which  had  been  left  at  Ticonderoga, 
knowing  that  it  was  impossible  to  defend  that  post 
against  the  army  which  was  now  free  to  act  against  it, 
hastily  abandoned  it  and  retreated  to  Canada. 

In  Europe,  one  of  the  first  effects  of  the  calamity  was 
to  fix  the  determination  of  the  French  ministers.  Their 
desire  of  injuring  and  humiliating  Great  Britain  had 
hitherto  been  restrained  by  their  dread  of  war,  by  the 


1  See  the  Minutes  of  the  Coun-      State  of   the  Expedition  Jr&m 
cil  of  War,  Oct.  13,  in  Burgoyne's      Canada. 
2? 


328   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  CH.  Mil. 

miserable  condition  of  their  finances,  by  their  fear  that 
the  long  succession  of  American  disasters  would  lead, 
either  to  a  speedy  compromise  or  to  a  total  subjugation 
of  the  insurgents.  It  is  a  common  error  of  politicians 
to  overrate  the  wisdom  of  their  opponents  and  to  under- 
rate the  influence  of  resentment,  ambition,  and  tempo- 
rary excitement  upon  their  judgments  or  their  acts; 
and  many  of  the  best  English  observers  appear  to  have 
believed  in  1777  that  France  would  not  enter  openly 
into  the  war,  but  would  content  herself  with  the  line 
of  sagacious  policy  which  had  been  indicated  by  Turgot. 
This  appears  to  have  been,  on  the  whole,  the  opinion  of 
Burke.1  It  was  the  decided  opinion  of  Gibbon,  who 
visited  Paris  in  August ; 2  and  the  King,  though  quite 
aware  of  the  secret  assistance  which  the  French  were 
giving  to  the  Americans,  expressed  his  belief,  in  Sep- 
tember, that  the  chances  of  war  with  France  had  greatly 
diminished.3 

It  is  probable,  indeed,  that  the  French  ministers 
themselves  were  undecided  until  the  tidings  arrived, 
in  the  first  week  of  December,  of  the  surrender  of 
Saratoga.  In  those  tidings  >  they  heard  the  knell  of 
English  dominion  in  America,  of  English  greatness  in 
the  world.  Their  decision  was  speedily  taken.  On  the 
17th  of  that  same  month  they  informed  the  American 
commissioners  that  they  were  resolved  to  enter  into  a 
treaty  of  commerce  with  America,  to  acknowledge  and 
support  her  independence,  and  to  seek  no  advantage  for 
themselves  except  a  participation  in  American  commerce 
and  the  great  political  end  of  severing  the  colonies  from 
the  British  Empire.  The  sole  condition  exacted  was 
that  the  Americans  should  make  no  peace  with  England 

1  Burke's   Correspondence,  ii.  III.  and  Lord  North,  ii.  83,  84. 

145, 146.  See,  too,  pp.  98,  106,  and  Wai- 

'*  Miscellaneous  Works,  ii.  210.  pole's  Last  Journals,  ii.  178. 
»  Correspondence    of    George 


CH.  xm.  ENGLISH   OPINION,    1776-7.  329 

which  did  not  involve  a  recognition  of  their  independ- 
ence.1 On  February  6,  1778,  treaties  to  this  effect  were 
formally  signed  in  Paris. 

It  will  now  be  necessary  to  revert  to  the  course  of 
opinion  in  England.  The  undoubted  popularity  of  the 
war  in  its  first  stage  had  for  some  time  continued 
to  increase,  and  in  the  latter  part  of  1776  and  the 
first  half  of  1777  it  had  probably  attained  its  maximum. 
At  the  close  of  1776  the  greater  part  of  the  Bucking- 
ham connection,  finding  themselves  beaten  by  over- 
whelming majorities,  abstained  from  attending  Parlia- 
ment except  in  the  mornings,  when  private  business 
was  being  transacted.  A  great  part  of  the  majorities 
against  them  consisted,  no  doubt,  of  courtiers  and  place- 
men, of  representatives  of  Cornish  boroughs,  or  other 
nominees  of  the  Government ;  but  the  Whigs  at  this 
time  very  fully  admitted  that  the  genuine  opinion  of 
the  country  was  with  the  Government  and  with  the 
King.  The  victory  of  Long  Island,  the  capture  of  New 
York,  Fort  Washington,  and  Fort  Lee,  the  successful 
invasion  of  the  Jerseys,  and  at  a  later  period  the  battle 
of  Brandy  wine  and  the  occupation  of  Philadelphia  and 
of  Ticonderoga,  convinced  a  great  section  of  the  Eng- 
lish people  that  the  insurrection  was  likely  to  be  speedily 
suppressed,  and  that  the  area  of  real  disaffection  had 
been  extremely  exaggerated.  The  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, and  the  known  overtures  of  the  Americans 
to  France,  were  deemed  the  climax  of  insolence  and 
ingratitude.  The  damage  done  to  English  commerce, 
not  only  in  the  West  Indies,  but  even  around  the  Eng- 
lish and  Irish  coast,  excited  a  widespread  bitterness, 
and  it  was  greatly  intensified  by  a  series  of  attempts 
which  were  made  at  the  close  of  1776  and  in  the  begin- 
ning of  1777  to  burn  the  arsenals  at  Portsmouth  and 

1  American  Diplomatic  Correspondence,  i,  355-357. 


330   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xnr, 

Plymouth,  and  the  shipping  at  Bristol.  Several  houses 
at  Bristol  were  actually  destroyed,  but  at  last  the  cul- 
prit was  detected  and  convicted,  and  he  proved  to  be 
an  artisan  who  had  recently  returned  from  America, 
and  who  by  his  own  confession  had  acted  at  the  direct 
instigation  of  Silas  Deane,  the  American  commissioner 
at  Paris.1  Besides  all  this,  war  in  itself  is  seldom  un- 
popular in  England.  English  privateers  were  soon 
afloat,  rivalling  in  their  gains  those  of  the  colonies,  and 
the  spirits  of  patriotism,  combat,  domination,  and  ad- 
venture were  all  aroused. 

Sir  George  Savile,  writing  confidentially  to  Rock- 
ingham  in  January  1777,  described  the  condition  of 
opinion  in  the  most  emphatic  terms :  *  We  are  not  only 
patriots  out  of  place,  but  patriots  out  of  the  opinion  of 
the  public.  The  reputed  successes,  hollow  as  I  think 
them,  and  the  more  ruinous  if  they  are  real,  have  fixed 
or  converted  ninety-nine  in  one  hundred.  The  cause 
itself  wears  away  by  degrees  from  a  question  of  right 
and  wrong  between  subjects,  to  a  war  between  us  and  a 
foreign  nation,  in  which  justice  is  never  heard,  because 
love  of  one's  country,  which  is  a  more  favourite  virtue, 
is  on  the  other  side.  I  see  marks  of  this  everywhere 
and  in  all  ranks.'2  In  his  admirable  letter  on  the 
American  question  addressed  to  the  Sheriffs  of  Bristol, 
which  was  published  in  the  beginning  of  1777,  Burke 
made  no  secret  of  his  belief  that  English  opinion  had 
deserted  the  Americans.  A  few  months  later  he  wrote 
to  Fox  that  '  the  popular  humour J  was  far  worse  than 
he  had  ever  known  it;  that  his  own  constituency, 
Bristol,  had  just  voted  the  freedom  of  the  citj  to  Lord 
Sandwich  and  Lord  Suffolk ;  that  *  in  Liverpool  they 
are  literally  almost  ruined  by  this  American  war,  but 


1  See  his  confession  in  Howell's          2  Albemarle's  Life  of  Rocking 
State  Trials,  xx.  1365.  ham,  ii.  b05. 


CH.  xiii.  ENGLISH    OPINION,    1777.  331 

they  love  it  as  they  suffer  from  it/  *  The  Tories/  he 
added,  'do  universally  think  their  power  and  conse- 
quence involved  in  the  success  of  this  American  business. 
The  clergy  are  astonishingly  warm  in  it ;  and  what  the 
Tories  are  when  embodied  and  united  with  their  natural 
head,  the  Crown,  and  animated  by  their  clergy,  no  man 
knows  better  than  yourself.  The  Whigs  .  .  .  are 
what  they  always  were  (except  by  the  able  use  of  op- 
portunities), by  far  the  weakest  party  in  this  country. 
.  .  .  The  Dissenters,  their  main  effective  part,  are  .  .  . 
not  all  in  force.  They  will  do  very  little.' l 

Measures  were  carried  without  difficulty  suspending 
the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  in  the  case  of  persons  suspected 
of  high  treason  committed  in  North  America  or  on  the 
high  seas,  or  of  piracy,  and  granting  letters  of  marque 
and  reprisal  against  American  vessels.  Supplies  amount- 
ing to  a  little  less  than  13  millions  were  voted  for  the 
expenses  of  the  year,  and  an  address,  which  was  moved 
by  Lord  Chatham  in  May,  for  repealing  the  many  op- 
pressive Acts  relating  to  America  since  1763,  was 
easily  rejected.  The  language  of  the  Opposition  in  their 
private  correspondence,  and  sometimes  in  public,  was 
that  of  extreme  despondency.  Burke  was  never  weary 
of  impressing  upon  the  people  that  the  American 
question  should  not  be  decided  by  philosophical  or 
historical  disquisitions  upon  the  rights  of  Parliament 
or  of  provincial  assemblies,  but  by  considerations  of  prac- 
tical policy,  and  that  no  possible  good  could  result  from 
the  course  which  was  being  pursued.  The  English,  he 
argued,  never  could  get  a  revenue  from  America.  They 


1  Burke 'R  Works,  ix.  152,  153.  disgrace  and  total  surrender  of 

So  the  Duke  of  Grafton  writes :  General    Burgoyne's     army    at 

• The  majority,  both  in   and  out  Saratoga  was  not   sufficient  to 

of  Parliament,   continued  in  a  awaken  them  from  their  follies.' 

blind  support  of  the  measures  of  — MS.  Autobiography. 
Administration.    Even  the  great 


332   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xm. 

were  masters  only  of  the  ground  on  which  they  en- 
camped. They  were  rapidly,  by  the  employment  of 
savage  allies  and  of  German  mercenaries,  depriving 
themselves  of  every  friend  in  America.  They  were 
adding  enormously  to  their  own  national  debt,  and  were 
exposing  themselves  to  the  danger  of  a  foreign  war 
under  most  disadvantageous  circumstances.  Nor  were 
these  the  only  evils  resulting  from  the  contest.  The 
party  most  hostile  to  British  liberty  was  raised  to 
power.  The  principles  of  liberty  were  discredited. 
Precedents  were  admitted  and  a  bias  was  created  ex- 
tremely hostile  to  the  British  Constitution,  and  some  of 
its  most  essential  maxims,  being  violated  in  America 
and  asserted  by  insurrection,  would  soon  cease  to  be  re- 
spected at  home.  The  Duke  of  Kichmond  even  ex- 
pressed his  firm  belief  that  Parliament  in  its  present 
mood  would  be  perfectly  ready  to  establish  despotism  in 
England.1 

The  Whig  secession  was  a  very  short  one,  and  it 
was  imperfectly  observed.  Fox,  who  was  now  rapidly 
rising  to  a  foremost  place  among  the  opponents  of  the 
Ministry,  never  joined  it.  His  speeches  at  this  time, 
by  the  confession  of  the  best  judges,  were  among  the 
most  powerful  ever  heard  in  Parliament ;  and  a  signifi- 
cant letter  is  preserved  in  which  the  King  recommended 
North  to  push  on  as  much  business  as  possible  during  a 
few  days  when  the  young  orator  was  at  Paris.2  Whether, 
however,  these  speeches  were  as  advantageous  to  the 
Whig  party  as  they  were  to  the  reputation  of  the 
speaker,  may,  I  think,  be  much  doubted.  It  was  one 
of  the  peculiarities  of  Fox,  which  he  showed  both 
during  the  American  War  and  during  the  war  of  the 
French  Revolution,  that  whenever  he  differed  from  the 


Burke's  Correspondence,  ii.  118. 

Correspondence  of  George  III.  with  Lord  North,  ii.  40. 


CH.  xin.  CONDUCT  OF  THE  OPPOSITION.  333 

policy  of  the  Government,  he  never  appeared  to  have 
the  smallest  leaning  or  bias  in  favour  of  his  country. 
Believing  at  this  time  that  his  friends  were  as  com- 
pletely proscribed  as  the  Jacobites  in  the  two  preceding 
reigns,  and  that  he  had  nothing  to  look  forward  to  ex- 
cept the  reputation  of  a  great  orator,1  he  placed  no 
check  upon  his  natural  impulses.  More  than  any  other 
man  he  gave  the  Whig  party  that  cosmopolitan  and  un- 
national  character  which  was  one  of  the  chief  sources  of 
its  weakness,  and  which  it  only  lost  at  the  Reform  Bill 
of  1832.  Chatham,  in  his  most  vehement  denunciations 
of  the  policy  of  the  Government,  never  forgot  that  he 
was  beyond  all  things  an  English  statesman,  and  the 
greatness  of  England  was  at  all  times  the  first  object  of 
his  ambition.  Burke,  although  he  was  guilty  of  innu- 
merable faults  of  temper  and  taste,  and  although  he  was 
quite  prepared  to  recognise  the  Independence  of  Ame- 
rica, if  it  became  necessary,  seldom  failed  to  put  forward 
reconciliation  as  the  ultimate  end  of  his  policy ;  and  in 
his  letter  to  the  Sheriffs  of  Bristol  in  1777  he  offended 
some  of  the  more  violent  members  of  his  party  by  ex- 
pressing his  earnest  wish  that  the  whole  body  of 
authority  of  the  English  Crown  and  Parliament  over 
America  which  existed  before  the  Stamp  Act,  might  be 
preserved  perfect  and  entire.2  But  the  language  of 
Fox  was  that  of  a  passionate  partisan  of  the  insurgents. 
I  have  already  mentioned  his  eulogy  of  Montgomery, 
who  fell  at  the  head  of  the  American  army.  In  one  of 
his  letters  he  described  the  first  considerable  success  of 
the  English  in  America  as  '  the  terrible  news  from  Long 
Island , '  and  spoke  of  what  would  happen  '  if  America 
should  be  at  our  feet — which  God  forbid.' 3  In  Parlia- 


1  Fox's  Correspondence,  i.  169-171. 

•  See  Burke's  Works,  iii.  176,  178. 

•  Fox's  Correspondence,  ii.  145,  147. 


334    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xm. 

ment  he  exerted  all  his  eloquence  to  show  that  it  was 
the  true  interest  of  France  and  Spain  to  draw  the  sword 
in  favour  of  American  Independence.1  When  the  news 
of  the  crushing  disaster  of  Saratoga  arrived,  the  Oppo- 
sition did  not  suspend  for  a  single  day  their  party  war- 
fare ;  they  expressed  no  real  desire  to  support  the  Gov- 
ernment in  its  difficulties,  and  Fox  at  once  signalised 
himself  by  a  furious  invective  against  Lord  George 
Germaine,  accusing  him  of  disgracing  his  country  in 
every  capacity,  and  expressing  his  hope  that  he  would 
be  brought  to  a  second  trial.2 

In  every  stage  of  the  contest  the  influence  of  the 
Opposition  was  employed  to  trammel  the  Government. 
In  1776  they  denounced  the  garrisoning  of  Minorca  and 
Gibraltar  with  Hanoverian  soldiers  as  a  breach  of  the 
Act  of  Settlement.3  After  the  surrender  of  Saratoga, 
Liverpool,  Manchester,  Edinburgh,  and  Glasgow  each 
raised  a  regiment.  Several  independent  companies 
were  raised  in  Wales,  and  the  patriotic  enthusiasm  was 
so  strong  that  no  less  than  15,000  soldiers  were  pre- 
sented by  private  bounty  to  the  State.4  But  the  Oppo- 
sition did  everything  in  their  power  to  discourage  the 
movement.  They  denounced  the  raising  of  troops  by 
private  subscription  as  unconstitutional  and  dangerous 
to  liberty,  while  they  dilated  upon  the  indefensible  con- 
dition of  the  country  in  a  strain  that  must  have  greatly 
encouraged  the  French,5  and  Fox  at  the  same  time 
moved  that  no  more  troops  should  be  sent  out  of  Eng- 
land.6 The  statement  of  Wraxall  that  the  Whig  colours 

1  Parl.  Hist,  xviii.  1430.  e  See    Parl.  Hist.    xix.   620, 

»  Walpole's     Last  Journals,  622.    He  said  '  that  Scotland  and 

ii.  170, 171.     Correspondence  of  Manchester  were  so  accustomed 

George  III.  with  Lord  North,  ii.  to  disgrace  that  it  was  no  wonder 

95.  if  they  pocketed  instances  of  dis- 

*  Adolphus,  ii.  265-267.  honour  and  sat  down  contented 
4  Ibid.  pp.  504,  505,  with  infamy.' 

•  Ibid.  pp.  509-515. 


CH.  xiu.  CONDUCT  OF  THE   OPPOSITION.  335 

of  buff  and  blue  were  first  adopted  by  Fox  in  imitation 
of  the  uniform  of  Washington's  troops,1  is,  I  believe, 
corroborated  by  no  other  writer ;  but  there  is  no  reason 
to  question  his  assertion  that  the  members  of  the  Whig 
party  in  society  and  in  both  Houses  of  Parliament 
•during  the  whole  course  of  the  war  wished  success  to 
the  American  cause  and  rejoiced  in  the  American 
triumphs.2  Benedict  Arnold  was  attacked,  Franklin 
and  Laurens  were  eulogised  in  the  British  House  of 
Commons  in  a  strain  which  would  have  been  perfectly 
becoming  in  the  American  Congress,  and  the  American 
cause  was  spoken  of  as  the  cause  of  liberty.3  Dr.  Price, 
who  was  one  of  the  great  lights  of  the  democratic  party, 
and  whose  knowledge  of  finance  was  widely  celebrated, 
was  invited  by  the  Congress  at  the  end  of  1778  to  go 
over  to  America  and  to  manage  the  American  finances. 
He  declined  the  invitation  on  the  ground  of  his  feeble 
health  and  spirits,  but  with  a  profusion  of  compliments 
to  the  Assembly,  which  he  *  considered  the  most  respect- 
able and  important  in  the  world,'  with  the  warmest 
wishes  for  the  success  of  the  Americans,  and  without 
the  smallest  intimation  that  the  fact  that  they  were  at 
war  with  his  country  made  it  difficult  for  him  to  place 
his  talents  at  their  disposal.4  In  1781  a  young  poet  of 
the  party,  who  afterwards  became  the  great  Sir  William 
Jones,  told  how  Truth,  Justice,  Reason,  and  Valour  had 

1  Wraxall's  Memoirs,  ii.  2.  •  dressed  in  buff  and  blue,  after- 
There  is  a  long  discussion  on  the  wards  joined  Montgomery  in 
origin  of  the  Whig  colours  in  the  Canada,  was  wounded  and  taken 
Stanhope  Miscellanies,  pp.  116-  prisoner  at  Quebec.' — Hist,  of 
122,  but  it  leaves  the  question  New  York,  ii.  343. 
in  great  uncertainty.  Sparks  2  Wraxall's  Memoirs,  i.  470, 
thought  that  the  Americans  471. 

adopted  the  uniform  from  the  *  Parl.  Hist.  xxii.  1176.  Burko 

Whigs,  but  it  appears  to  have  was    the    warmest    eulogist    of 

been  worn  in  America  from  the  Franklin  and  Laurens. 

very  beginning  of  the  contest.  4  American    Diplomatic   Cor- 

Jones  speaks  of  a  soldier  who,  respondence,  ii.  222,  224. 


336        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,     en.  xtu. 

all  fled  beyond  the  Atlantic  to  seek  a  purer  soil  and  a 
more  congenial  sky.1  'The  parricide  joy  of  some/  wrote 
Sir  Gilbert  Elliot  about  this  time, '  in  the  losses  of  their 
country  makes  me  mad.  They  don't  disguise  it.  A 
patriotic  Duke  told  me  some  weeks  ago  that  some  ships 
had  been  lost  off  the  coast  of  North  America  in  a  storm. 
He  said  1,000  British  sailors  were  drowned — not  one 
escaped — with  joy  sparkling  in  his  eyes.  ...  In  the 
House  of  Commons  it  is  not  unusual  to  speak  of  the 
Provincials  as  our  army.'  The  same  acute  observer  ex- 
pressed his  conviction  that  the  North  Ministry  had  re- 
peatedly made  mistakes  which  would  have  destroyed  it 
had  it  not  been  for  the  course  which  was  adopted  by  the 
Opposition.  '  It  was  the  wish  of  Great  Britain  to  re- 
cover America.  Government  aimed  at  least  at  this 
object,  which  the  Opposition  rejected.  .  .  .  The  prin- 
ciples [of  Government]  respecting  America  were  agree- 
able to  the  people,  and  those  of  Opposition  offensive  to 
them.'2 

And  while  the  Opposition  by  their  grossly  unpatriotic 
language  and  conduct  exasperated  the  national  feeling, 
the  King,  on  his  side,  did  the  utmost  in  his  power  to 
embitter  the  contest.  It  is  only  by  examining  his  cor- 
respondence with  Lord  North  that  we  fully  realise  how 
completely  at  this  time  he  assumed  the  position  not 
only  of  a  prime  minister  but  of  a  Cabinet,  superintend- 
ing, directing,  and  prescribing,  in  all  its  parts,  the 
policy  of  the  Government.  It  was  not  merely  that  he 
claimed  a  commanding  voice  in  every  kind  of  appoint- 
ment. The  details  of  military  management,  the  whole 

1   See  a  poem  called  The  Muse  B°w>  tyrants,  bow  beneath  th'  avenging 

Recalled',  Jones  continued:—  CtaSh*  with  fleets  shall  mock  the 

There  or  9  lofty  thront  shall  Virtue  waves, 

stand,  And  arts  that  flourish  not  with  slaves. 
To  her   the  youth  of  Delaware  shall 

™ 


OH.  xiii.  CONDUCT  OF  THE   KIXG.  337 

course  and  character  of  the  war,  and  sometimes  even 
the  manner  in  which  Government  questions  were  to  be 
argued  in  Parliament,  were  prescribed  by  him;  and 
ministers,  according  to  the  theory  which  had  now  be- 
come dominant  in  Court  circles,  were  prepared  to  act 
simply  as  his  agents,  even  in  direct  opposition  to  their 
own  judgments.  We  have  already  seen  that  Lord  Bar- 
rington,  who,  as  minister  of  war,  was  most  directly  re- 
sponsible for  the  manner  in  which  the  war  was  con- 
ducted, had  distinctly  informed  his  brother  ministers  as 
early  as  1774  that  he  disapproved  of  the  whole  policy  of 
coercing  the  colonies,  that  be  believed  the  military 
enterprises  which  he  organised  could  lead  to  nothing 
but  disaster,  and  that  he  was  convinced  that,  though 
the  Americans  might  be  reduced  by  the  fleet,  they  could 
never  be  reduced  by  the  army.  We  have  seen  also 
that,  although  Barrington  never  failed  to  express  his 
opinions  frankly  and  fully  to  the  Cabinet,  he  consented, 
at  the  request  of  the  King,  to  remain  the  responsible 
minister  till  the  end  of  1778.  Lord  Howe  and  Lord 
Amherst  agreed  with  Barrington  in  thinking  that  an 
exclusively  naval  war  was  the  sole  chance  of  success, 
and  it  is  extremely  probable  that  this  opinion  was  a 
just  one.  In  the  divided  condition  of  American  opinion, 
the  stress  of  a  severe  blockade  might  easily  have  ren- 
dered the  Revolutionary  party  so  unpopular  that  it 
would  have  succumbed  before  the  Loyalists,  had  it  not 
been  strengthened  by  the  great  military  triumph  of 
Saratoga,  and  by  the  indignation  which  the  outrages  of 
British  and  German  troops  and  the  far  more  horrible 
outrages  of  Indian  savages  had  very  naturally  produced. 
But  the  King  had  a  different  plan  for  the  war,  and  Bar- 
rington obediently  carried  it  out.  *  Every  means  of 
distressing  America,'  wrote  the  King,  *  must  meet  with 
my  concurrence.'  He  strongly  supported  the  employ- 
ment of  Indians,  and  in  October  1777  he  expressed  hia 


338    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  cii.  xiu. 

hope  that  Howe  would  *  turn  his  thoughts  to  the  mode 
of  war  best  calculated  to  end  this  contest,  as  most  dis- 
tressing to  the  Americans,'  which,  the  King  reproach- 
fully added,  'he  seems  as  yet  carefully  to  have  avoided.'1 
It  was  the  King's  friends  who  were  most  active  in  pro- 
moting all  measures  of  violence.  Clergymen  who  in 
the  fast-day  sermons  distinguished  themselves  by  violent 
attacks  on  the  Americans  or  by  maintaining  despotic 
theories  of  government,  were  conspicuously  selected  for 
promotion.  The  war  was  commonly  called  the  '  King's 
war,'  and  its  opponents  were  looked  upon  as  opponents 
of  the  King.2 

The  person,  however,  who  in  the  eye  of  history  ap- 
pears most  culpable  in  this  matter,  was  Lord  North. 
He  disclaimed  indeed  the  title  of  Prime  Minister,  as  a 
term  unknown  to  the  Constitution ;  but  as  First  Lord 
of  the  Treasury  and  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  he 
was  more  than  any  other  person  responsible  to  the 
country  for  the  policy  that  was  pursued,  and  but  for  his 
continuance  in  office  that  policy  could  hardly  have  been 
maintained.  Nearly  all  the  great  politicians  of  Europe 
— Frederick  in  Prussia,  Turgot  in  France,  Chatham  and 
Burke  in  England — pronounced  the  course  which  the 
English  Government  were  adopting  to  be  ruinous ;  and 
the  bitterness  with  which  the  Opposition  attacked  Lord 
North  was  always  considerably  aggravated  by  the  very 
prevalent  belief  that  he  was  not  seriously  convinced  of 
the  wisdom  of  the  war  he  was  conducting,  and  that  the 
tenacity  with  which  he  pursued  it  long  after  success 
appeared  impossible,  was  due  to  his  resolution,  at  all 


1  Correspondence  of  George  III.  from    the    handwriting    of    the 

with  Lord  North,  i.  274,  ii.  84.  King,    in    Albemarle's    Life    of 

See,  too,  Bancroft's  History  of  Bockingham,  ii.  330-332. 

the  United  States,  ix.  321,  and  2  See  Nichols's    Recollection* 

also  a  paper,  '  On  the  Conduct  of  of  George  III.  i.  35. 
the  War  from  Canada,'  copied 


CH.  xiii.  CONDUCT   OF  NORTH.  339 

hazards  to  his  country,  to  retain  his  office.  The  publi- 
cation of  the  correspondence  of  George  III.  has  thrown 
a  light  upon  this  question  which  was  not  possessed  by 
contemporaries,  and,  while  it  completely  exculpates 
North  from  the  charge  of  excessive  attachment  to  office, 
it  supplies  one  of  the  most  striking  and  melancholy 
examples  of  the  relation  of  the  King  to  his  Tory  mini- 
sters. It  appears  from  this  correspondence  that  for  the 
space  of  about  five  years  North,  at  the  entreaty  of  the 
King,  carried  on  a  bloody,  costly,  and  disastrous  war  in 
direct  opposition  to  his  own  judgment  and  to  his  own 
wishes.  In  the  November  of  1779  Lord  Gower,  who 
had  hitherto  been  one  of  the  staunchest  supporters  of 
the  Government,  resigned  his  post  on  the  ground  that 
the  system  which  was  being  pursued  '  must  end  in  ruin 
to  his  Majesty  and  the  country; '  and  North,  in  a  pri- 
vate letter  to  the  King,  after  describing  the  efforts  he 
had  made  to  dissuade  his  colleague  from  resigning, 
added  these  memorable  words  :  '  In  the  argument  Lord 
North  had  certainly  one  disadvantage,  which  is  that  he 
holds  in  his  heart,  and  has  held  for  three  years  past,  the 
same  opinion  with  Lord  Gower.' J  And  yet  in  spite  of 
this  declaration  he  continued  in  office  for  two  years 
longer.  Again  and  again  he  entreated  that  his  resig- 
nation might  be  accepted,  but  again  and  again  he 
yielded  to  the  request  of  the  King,  who  threatened,  if 
his  minister  resigned,  to  abdicate  the  throne,  who  im- 
plored him,  by  his  honour  as  a  gentleman,  and  his 
loyalty  as  a  subject,  to  continue  at  his  post,  who  reiter- 
ated his  supplications  in  letter  after  letter  of  passionate 
entreaty,  and  who,  though  perfectly  aware  that  Lord 
North  regarded  the  war  as  hopeless  and  inevitably  dis- 
astrous, uniformly  urged  that  resignation  would  be  an 
act  of  culpable,  cowardly,  and  dishonourable  desertion. 

1  See  Fox's  Correspondence,  i.  212. 


340         ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     CH.  xui. 

Unhappily  for  his  country,  most  unhappily  for  his  own 
reputation,  North  suffered  himself  to  be  swayed  and 
became  the  instrument  of  a  policy  of  which  he  utterly 
disapproved.  He  was  an  amiable  but  weak  man,  keenly 
susceptible  to  personal  influence,  and  easily  moved  by 
the  unhappiness  of  those  with  whom  he  came  in  con- 
tact, but  without  sufficient  force  of  principle  to  restrain 
his  feelings,  or  sufficient  power  of  imagination  to  realise 
adequately  the  sufferings  of  great  bodies  of  men  in  a 
distant  land.  His  loyalty  and  personal  attachment  to 
the  King  were  stronger  than  his  patriotism.  He  was 
cut  to  the  heart  by  the  distress  of  his  Sovereign,  and  he 
was  too  good-natured  to  arrest  the  war. 

The  King  was  determined,  under  no  circumstances, 
to  treat  with  the  Americans  on  the  basis  of  the  recog- 
nition of  their  independence ;  but  he  acknowledged, 
after  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne,  and  as  soon  as  the 
French  war  had  become  inevitable,  that  unconditional 
submission  could  no  longer  be  hoped  for,  and  that  it 
might  be  advisable  to  concentrate  the  British  forces  in 
Canada,  Nova  Scotia,  and  the  Floridas,  and  to  employ 
them  exclusively  against  the  French  and  Spanish  pos- 
sessions in  the  West  Indies.1  He  consented,  too,  though 
apparently  with  extreme  reluctance,  and  in  consequence 
of  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  Cabinet,  that  new  propo- 
sitions should  be  made  to  the  Americans.  The  stocks 
had  greatly  fallen.  No  recruits  could  any  longer  be 
obtained  from  Germany ;  the  ministerial  majorities, 
though  still  large,  had  perceptibly  diminished,  and  out- 
side the  Parliament,  Gibbon  noticed,  even  before  the 
news  of  Saratoga  arrived,  that  the  tide  of  opinion  was 
beginning  to  flow  in  the  direction  of  peace.2  On  De- 

1  Correspondence  of  George  III.  Gibbon  (Dec.  2,  1777).    A  month 
with  Lord  North,  ii.  118,   125,  previously  the  Duke  of  Bichmond 
126.  had  written:    'I  will  say,  too, 

2  See   a  remarkable  letter  of  that  the  people  begin  to  feel  the 


CH.  xiii.  SPEECH   OF    CHATHAM.  341 

cember  10,  1777,  a  few  days  after  the  surrender  of 
Burgoyne  had  been  announced,  when  the  attitude  of  the 
French  was  yet  unknown,  and  when  Parliament  was 
about  to  adjourn  for  Christmas,  Lord  North  announced 
that  at  the  close  of  the  holidays  he  would  bring  in  a 
project  of  conciliation. 

The  next  day  Chatham  made  one  of  his  greatest 
speeches  on  the  subject.  Though  now  a  complete  in- 
valid, he  had  several  times  during  the  last  few  months 
spoken  in  the  House  of  Lords  on  the  American  ques- 
tion, with  little  less  than  his  old  eloquence,  and 
with  a  wisdom  and  moderation  which  in  his  greater 
days  he  had  not  always  exhibited.  America,  he  em- 
phatically and  repeatedly  maintained,  never  could  be 
subdued  by  force ;  the  continued  attempt  could  only 
lead  to  utter  ruin,  and  France  would  sooner  or  later 
inevitably  throw  herself  into  the  contest.  He  repro- 
bated, in  language  that  has  become  immortal  in  Eng- 
lish eloquence,  the  policy  which  let  loose  the  tomahawks 
of  the  Indians  upon  the  old  subjects  of  England.  In  a 
passage  which  is  less  quoted,  but  which  was  eminently 
indicative  of  his  military  prescience,  he  had  in  Novem- 
ber spoken  of  the  total  loss  of  the  army  of  Burgoyne  as 
a  probable  contingency,1  and  he  dilated  on  the  in- 
sufficiency of  the  naval  establishments  in  a  language 
which  was  emphatically  repudiated  by  the  ministers,  but 
which  subsequent  events  fully  justified.  He  strongly 
maintained,  however,  that  England  and  America  must 
remain  united  for  the  benefit  of  both,  and  that  though 
every  week  which  passed  made  it  more  difficult,  and 

continuance  of  the  war,  the  losses,  Savile,  however,  thought  that  in 

the  taxes,  the  load  of  debt,  the  November  the  people  were  still 

want  of  money,  and  the  impossi-  on  the  side  of  the  war.     Ibid.  p. 

bility  of  such  success  as  to  re-  322. 

establish  a  permanent  tranquil-  *  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv. 

lity.' — Albemarle's  Life  of  Bock-  452. 

itigham,    ii.    318.    Sir   George 


3-12   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  xui. 

though  the  language  of  the  ministers,  and  especially  the 
employment  of  Indians,  had  enormously  aggravated  the 
situation,  it  was  still  possible,  by  a  frank  and  speedy 
surrender  of  all  the  constitutional  questions  in  dispute, 
and  by  an  immediate  withdrawal  of  the  invading  army, 
to  conciliate  the  colonies.  *  America  is  in  ill-humour 
with  France  on  some  points  that  have  not  entirely  an- 
swered her  expectations ;  let  us  wisely  take  advantage 
of  every  possible  moment  of  reconciliation.  Her  natu- 
ral disposition  still  leans  towards  England,  and  to  the 
old  habits  of  connection  and  mutual  interest  that  united 
both  countries.  This  was  the  established  sentiment  of 
all  the  continent.  .  .  .  All  the  middle  and  southern 
provinces  are  still  sound  .  .  .  still  sensible  of  their 
real  interests.'  '  The  security  and  permanent  prosperity 
of  both  countries '  can  only  be  attained  by  union,  and 
by  this  alone  the  power  of  France  can  be  repressed. 
*  America  and  France  cannot  be  congenial ;  there  is 
something  decisive  and  confirmed  in  the  honest  Ameri- 
can that  will  not  assimilate  to  the  futility  and  levity  of 
Frenchmen.'  Prompt,  conciliatory  action  was,  however, 
necessary,  and  he  accordingly  strenuously  opposed  the 
adjournment,  which  left  the  country  without  a  Parlia- 
ment in  the  six  critical  weeks  that  followed  the  arrival 
of  the  news  of  the  capitulation  of  Saratoga.1 

His  counsel  was  rejected,  but  in  the  course  of  the 
recess  some  private  overtures  were  vainly  made  to  Frank- 
lin by  persons  who  are  said  to  have  been  in  the  confidence 
of  the  English  Government.  The  feeling  of  uneasiness  in 
the  country  was  now  very  acute,  and  it  was  noticed  that 
in  January  1778  the  Three  per  Cents,  stood  at  71J, 
whereas  in  January  1760,  which  was  the  fifth  year  of  a 
war  with  the  united  House  of  Bourbon,  they  were  79.f 


1  Chatham  Correspondence,  iv.  454,  455,  457. 
«  Parl.  Hist.  xix.  617. 


en.  xiii.      NORTH'S  MEASURE  OF  CONCILIATION.          343 

On  February  17,  North  rose  to  move  Bills  of  concilia- 
tion which  virtually  conceded  all  that  America  had  long 
been  asking.  The  Act  remodelling  the  constitution  of 
Massachusetts  and  the  tea  duty,  which  were  the  main 
grievances  of  the  colonies,  were  both  absolutely  and 
unconditionally  repealed.  Parliament  formally  promised 
to  impose  no  taxes  upon  the  colonies  for  the  sake  of 
revenue,  and  although  it  retained  its  ancient  right  of 
imposing  such  duties  as  were  necessary  for  the  regu- 
lation of  commerce,  it  bound  itself  that  those  duties 
should  always  be  applied  to  public  purposes  in  the 
colony  in  which  they  were  levied,  in  such  manner  as  the 
colonial  assemblies  should  determine.  It  was  enacted 
also  that  commissioners  should  be  sent  out  to  America 
to  negotiate  a  peace,  with  full  powers  to  treat  with 
Congress,  to  proclaim  a  cessation  of  hostilities  by  land 
and  sea,  to  grant  pardons  to  all  descriptions  of  persons, 
and  to  suspend  the  operation  of  all  Acts  of  Parliament 
relating  to  the  American  colonies  which  had  passed 
since  February  1763.1 

The  propositions  were  listened  to  with  blank  amaze- 
ment by  the  most  devoted  followers  of  the  ministers. 
They  were  in  effect  much  the  same  as  those  which 
Burke  had  vainly  advocated  nearly  three  years  before. 
They  completely  surrendered  all  for  which  England  had 
been  contending  at  such  a  ruinous  cost,  and  the  speech 
with  which  Lord  North  introduced  them  was  one  of  the 
most  extraordinary  ever  made  by  an  English  minister. 
He  contended  that  his  present  measures  were  not  only 
perfectly  consistent  with  his  present  opinions,  but  con- 
sistent also  with  the  opinions  he  had  always  held  and 
with  the  policy  he  had  always  pursued.  He  never,  he 
said,  had  any  real  belief  in  the  possibility  of  obtaining 
a  considerable  revenue  from  Ajnerica.  The  policy  of 


1  18  Geo.  in.  c.  xi.  xii.  xiii. 
24 


34:4:   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xin. 

taxing  America  was  not  his,  but  that  of  his  predecessors. 
He  found  the  tea  duty  established  and  was  not  able  to 
abandon  it.  The  measure  enabling  the  East  India 
Company  to  send  its  tea  to  America,  paying  a  small 
duty  there,  but  with  a  drawback  of  the  much  larger 
duty  previously  paid  in  England,  was  in  reality  an  act 
not  of  oppression  but  of  relief,  and  it  had  only  been 
turned  into  a  new  grievance  by  the  combined  artifices 
of  demagogues  who  wished  to  produce  a  separation,  and 
of  smugglers  who  feared  that  the  contraband  trade  in 
tea  would  be  extinguished.  The  coercion  Acts  had 
been  introduced  on  account  of  great  acts  of  violence 
which  had  occurred  in  the  colonies.  They  had  not  pro- 
duced the  results  that  were  hoped  for,  and  he  was  quite 
prepared  to  abandon  them.  They  had,  however,  been 
so  far  from  representing  what,  in  the  opinion  of  North, 
ought  to  be  the  permanent  relations  of  England  to  the 
colonies,  that  he  had  accompanied  them  by  a  concilia- 
tory measure  which  he  still  thought  would  have  formed 
the  happiest,  most  equitable,  most  lasting  bond  of  union 
between  the  mother  country  and  her  colonies.  He  had 
proposed  that  any  colony  might  secure  itself  against  all 
taxation  by  Parliament  if  it  would,  of  its  own  accord, 
raise  such  a  sum  towards  the  payment  of  its  civil 
government  and  towards  the  common  defence  of  the 
Empire  as  Parliament  thought  sufficient.  The  proposal 
was  most  honestly  meant,  but  the  Americans  had  been 
persuaded,  partly  by  their  own  leaders,  and  partly  by 
the  English  Opposition,  that  it  was  a  deceptive  one.  He 
had  afterwards  authorised  Lord  Howe  and  his  brother 
to  negotiate  with  members  of  the  Congress  in  1776,  but 
it  was  then  objected  that  the  commissioners  had  in- 
sufficient powers.  This  objection  was  obviated  by  the 
present  Bill.  The  -new  commissioners  would  be  in- 
structed to  endeavour  to  induce  the  colonies  to  make 
some  reasonable,  moderate,  and  voluntary  contribution 


NORTH'S  MEASURE  OF  CONCILIATION.          345 

towards  tlie  cost  of  the  common  empire  when  reunited, 
but  no  such  contribution  was  to  be  demanded  as  essen- 
tial; the  right  of  Parliament  to  tax  the  colonies  was 
formally  and  finally  renounced,  and  the  States  were 
not  to  be  asked  to  resign  their  independence  till  the 
treaty  with  the  mother  country  had  been  agreed  on 
and  ratified  in  Parliament.  It  was  added  in  the  course 
of  the  debate  on  the  part  of  the  Government,  that  a 
security  of  the  debts  of  Congress,  and  a  re-establish- 
ment of  the  credit  of  the  paper  money  which  had  now 
been  so  enormously  depreciated,  would  be  one  of  the 
objects  of  the  Commission  and,  it  was  hoped,  one  of  the 
chief  inducements  to  the  Americans  to  receive  it  with 
favour. 

The  speech,  wrote  a  keen  observer,1  was  listened  to 
'  with  profound  attention,  but  without  a  single  mark  of 
approbation  to  any  part,  from  any  description  of  men 
or  any  particular  man  in  the  House.  Astonishment, 
dejection,  and  fear  overclouded  the  whole  assembly/ 
Everything,  as  devoted  followers  of  the  Ministry  ex- 
plained, except  independence,  was  conceded,  and  offers 
were  made  which  a  little  before  would  certainly  have 
been  welcomed  with  alacrity.  Now,  however,  they 
clashed  against  two  fatal  obstacles — the  treaties  with 
France,  which,  though  not  yet  formally  declared  or 
ratified,  were  already  signed,  and  the  antecedents  of 
the  ministry,  which  made  it  impossible  that  any  pro- 
posals that  emanated  from  it  could  be  received  without 
hostility  and  distrust.  That  Lord  North  in  his  speech 
truly  represented  his  own  later  opinions  on  American 
questions  is  very  probable,  but  they  were  at  least 
opinions  which  were  utterly  opposed  to  those  which  the 
world  ascribed  to  him  and  to  the  general  policy  of  his 
party.  He  was  the  special  leader  of  men  who  in  every 


1  Annual  Register  1778. 


34:6   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  sni. 

stage  of  the  long  controversy  had  uniformly  shown 
themselves  the  most  implacable  enemies  of  the  preten- 
sions of  the  colonies,  and  who  had  spared  no  insult  and 
no  injury  that  could  exasperate  and  envenom  the  con- 
flict. Sandwich  and  Rigby,  Weymouth  and  Hills- 
borough,  Wedderburn  and  Germaine,  the  King's 
friends  and  the  Bedford  faction,  were  very  naturally 
regarded  by  the  Americans  as  their  most  rancorous 
enemies.  The  language  of  the  ministerial  newspapers, 
the  disposal  of  ministerial  patronage,  the  gradual  dis- 
placement of  every  politician  who  leaned  towards  a 
milder  policy,  had  all  abundantly  indicated  their  spirit. 
In  such  hands  it  was  scarcely  possible  that  concilia- 
tion could  succeed.  The  commissioners  appointed  were 
Lord  Carlisle,  William  Eden,  and  George  Johnstone,  a 
former  governor  of  Florida.  The  first  two  were  as  yet 
very  little  known  in  politics,  but  after  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  Lord  Carlisle  had  moved  the  address 
in  answer  to  the  royal  Speech  which  denounced  the 
Americans  as  rebels  and  traitors,  while  Eden  had  been 
Under-Secret ary  to  Lord  Suffolk,  the  most  vehement 
advocate  of  the  employment  of  Indians  in  the  war. 
Johnstone  had,  it  is  true,  opposed  the  ministerial  mea- 
sures relating  to  the  colonies,  and  he  was  well  known 
in  America  ;  but  he  greatly  injured  the  cause  by  private 
overtures  to  members  of  Congress,  endeavouring  by 
personal  offers  to  obtain  their  assistance,  and  after  much 
angry  altercation  he  withdrew  from  the  Commission. 
Congress  unanimously  declined  any  reconciliation  which 
was  not  based  on  a  recognition  of  American  indepen- 
dence. The  commissioners  appear  to  have  done  every- 
thing in  their  power  to  execute  their  mission.  They 
even  went  beyond  their  legal  powers,  for  besides  pro- 
mising the  Americans  complete  liberty  of  internal 
legislation,  they  offered  an  engagement  that  no  Euro- 
pean troops  should  be  again  sent  to  America  without 


ca.  xi«.  THE  FRENCH  WAR.  34:7 

the  consent  of  the  local  assemblies,  and  they  also  offered 
an  American  representation  in  the  English  Parliament. 
Gates  was  in  favour  of  negotiation,  and  Lee,  who  had 
now  lost  almost  all  sympathy  with  the  American  cause, 
was  on  the  same  side ;  but,  though  a  great  section  of 
the  American  people  would  have  gladly  closed  the 
quarrel  by  a  reconciliation,  the  Congress  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  insurgent  party.  In  October  the  com- 
missioners published  a  manifesto  appealing  from  the 
Congress  to  the  people,  offering  the  terms  which  had 
been  rejected  to  each  separate  State,  and  threatening 
a  desolating  war  if  those  terms  were  not  accepted. 
Offers,  however,  emanating  from  the  North  ministry 
were  almost  universally  distrusted,  and  the  new  alliance 
with  France  was  welcomed  with  enthusiasm.  On  May 
4,  1778,  the  treaties  of  alliance  and  commerce  were 
unanimously  ratified  by  Congress.  On  the  13th  of  the 
preceding  March  the  latter  treaty  had  been  formally 
communicated  by  the  French  ambassador  at  London, 
and  immediately  after,  the  ambassadors  on  each  side 
were  recalled,  and  England  and  France  were  at  war. 

The  moment  was  one  of  the  most  terrible  in  English 
history.  England  had  not  an  ally  in  the  world.  One 
army  was  a  prisoner  in  America ;  and  the  Congress,  on 
very  futile  pretexts,  had  resolved  not  to  execute  the 
Convention  of  Saratoga,  which  obliged  them  to  send  it 
back  to  England.  The  great  bulk  of  the  English 
troops  were  confined  in  Philadelphia  and  New  York. 
The  growing  hostility  of  the  German  Powers  had  made 
it  impossible  to  raise  or  subsidise  additional  German 
eoldiers  ;  and  in  these  circumstances,  England,  already 
exhausted  by  a  war  which  its  distance  made  peculiarly 
terrible,  had  to  confront  the  whole  force  of  France,  and 
was  certain  in  a  few  months  to  have  to  encounter  the 
whole  force  of  Spain.  Her  navy  was  but  half  prepared : 
her  troops  were  barely  sufficient  to  protect  her  shores 


348   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CE.  xm. 

from  invasion;  her  ministers  and  her  generals  were 
utterly  discredited ;  her  Prime  Minister  had  just  ad- 
mitted that  the  taxation  of  America,  which  was  the 
original  object  of  the  war,  was  an  impossibility.  At 
the  same  time,  the  country  believed,  as  most  men  be- 
lieved both  on  the  Continent  and  in  America,  that  the 
severance  of  the  colonies  would  be  the  beginning  of  the 
complete  decadence  of  England ;  and  the  Imperial 
feeling,  which  was  resolved  to  make  any  sacrifice  rather 
than  submit  to  the  dismemberment  of  the  Empire,  was 
fully  aroused.  It  is  a  feeling  which  is  rarely  absent 
from  any  large  section  of  the  English  race,  and  how- 
ever much  the  Americans,  during  the  War  of  Indepen- 
dence, may  have  reprobated  it,  it  was  never  displayed 
more  conspicuously  or  more  passionately  than  by  their 
own  descendants  when  the  great  question  of  secession 
arose  within  their  border. 

There  was  one  man  to  whom,  in  this  hour  of  panic 
and  consternation,  the  eyes  of  all  patriotic  Englishmen 
•were  turned.  In  Chatham  England  possessed  a  states- 
man whose  genius  in  conducting  a  war  was  hardly 
inferior  to  that  of  Marlborough  in  conducting  an  army. 
In  France  his  name  produced  an  almost  superstitious 
terror.  In  America  it  was  pronounced  with  the  deepest 
affection  and  reverence.  He  had,  in  the  great  French 
war,  secured  the  Anglo-Saxon*  preponderance  in  the 
colonies ;  he  had  defended  the  colonies  in  every  stage 
of  their  controversy  about  the  Stamp  Act,  and  had 
fascinated  them  by  the  splendour  of  his  genius.  If  any 
statesman  could,  at  the  last  moment,  conciliate  them, 
dissolve  the  new  alliance,  and  kindle  into  a  flame  the 
loyalist  feeling  which  undoubtedly  existed  largely  in 
America,  it  was  Chatham.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  con- 
ciliation proved  impossible,  no  statesman  could  for  a 
moment  be  compared  to  him  in  the  management  of  a 
war.  Lord  North  implored  the  King  to  accept  his 


CH.  xin.          DESIRE   FOR   A   CHATHAM   MINISTRY.  349 

resignation,  and  to  send  for  Chatham.  Bute,  the  old 
Tory  favourite,  breaking  his  long  silence,  spoke  of 
Chatham  as  now  indispensable.  Lord  Mansfield,  the 
bitterest  and  ablest  rival  of  Chatham,  said,  with  tears 
in  his  eyes,  that  unless  the  King  sent  for  Chatham,  the 
ship  would  assuredly  go  down.  George  Grenville,  the 
son  of  the  author  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  Lord  Rochford, 
one  of  the  ablest  of  the  late  Secretaries  of  State,  em- 
ployed the  same  language,  and  public  opinion  loudly 
and  unanimously  declared  itself  in  the  same  sense. 
Lord  Barrington  represented  to  the  King  '  the  general 
dismay  which  prevails  among  all  ranks  and  conditions, 
arising  from  an  opinion  that  the  administration  was 
not  equal  to  the  times,  an  opinion  so  universal  that  it 
prevailed  among  those  who  were  most  dependent  and 
attached  to  his  ministers,  and  even  among  the  ministers 
themselves.'  *  Every  rank,'  wrote  one  of  the  foremost 
bankers  in  London,  '  looks  up  to  Chatham  with  the 
only  gleam  of  hope  that  remains ;  nor  do  I  meet  with 
anyone  who  does  not  lament  and  wonder  that  his 
Majesty  has  not  yet  publicly  desired  the  only  help  that 
can  have  a  chance  to  extricate  the  country  from  the 
difficulties  which  every  day  grow  greater,  and  must 
otherwise,  I  fear,  become  insurmountable.'  The  Rock- 
in  gham  party  believed,  what  Chatham  still  refused  to 
admit,  that  the  only  possible  course  was  to  acknowledge 
at  once  the  independence  of  America ;  and  the  old 
jealousies  that  divided  them  from  Chatham  were  far 
from  extinct.  But  the  Rockingham  party  also  agreed 
in  thinking  that  it  was  now  in  the  easy  power  of 
France  and  Spain  to  give  '  a  deadly  blow '  to  this 
country,  and  as  Chatham  had  clearly  said  that  America 
could  never  be  overcome  by  force,  the  difference  be- 
tween them  was  in  reality  chiefly  in  the  more  or  less 
sanguine  hope  they  entertained  of  the  possibility  of 
conciliation.  The  Duke  of  Richmond,  who  of  all  pro- 


350    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  an. 

minent  politicians  was  the  most  vehement  supporter  of 
the  necessity  of  admitting  the  independence  of  America, 
sent  to  say  that  '  there  never  was  a  time  when  so  great 
a  man  as  Lord  Chatham  was  more  wanted  than  at 
present,'  and  that  if  Chatham  thought  it  right  to  make 
another  attempt  to  prevent  the  separation  of  the 
colonies  he  would  '  be  the  first  to  give  him  every  sup- 
port in  his  power.'  Lord  Camden,  who  now  usually 
acted  with  the  Buckingham  party,  and  was  somewhat 
alienated  from  Chatham,  wrote  of  him  to  Buckingham  : 
*  I  see  plainly  the  public  does  principally  look  up  to 
him,  and  such  is  the  opinion  of  the  world  as  to  his 
ability  to  advise  as  well  as  execute  in  this  perilous 
crisis,  that  they  will  never  be  satisfied  with  any  change 
or  arrangement  where  he  is  not  among  the  first.' l 

Everything  seemed  thus  to  point  to  a  Ministry 
under  the  guidance  of  Chatham  as  the  last  hope  of 
English  greatness.  Alone  amid  the  accumulating  dis- 
asters of  his  country  and  the  concurrence  of  the  most 
hostile  parties  the  King  was  unmoved.  He  consented 
indeed — and  he  actually  authorised  Lord  North  to  make 
the  astounding  proposition — to  receive  Chatham  as  a 
subordinate  minister  to  North,  in  order  to  strengthen 
the  existing  administration ;  but  this  was  the  utmost 
extent  to  which  he  would  go.  His  own  words,  which 
are  too  clear  for  cavil  or  for  dispute,  should  determine 
for  ever  his  claims  to  be  regarded  as  a  patriot  king. 
' 1  declare  in  the  strongest  and  most  solemn  manner/ 
he  wrote  to  North,  '  that  though  I  do  not  object  to  your 
addressing  yourself  to  Lord  Chatham,  yet  that  you 
must  acquaint  him  that  I  shall  never  address  myself  to 
him  but  through  you,  and  on  a  clear  explanation  that 
he  is  to  step  forth  to  support  an  administration  wherein 


1  Compare    Chatham    Corre-      Albemarle's   Life    of   Rockinp 
tpondence,  iv.  493-506, 511, 512  ;       ham,  i.  348-351. 


en.  xi ii.  OBSTINACY  OF  THE   KING.  351 

you  are  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  ...  I  will  only 
add,  to  put  before  your  eye  my  most  inward  thoughts, 
that  no  advantage  to  this  country,  no  present  danger 
to  myself,  can  ever  make  me  address  myself  to  Lord 
Chatham  or  any  other  branch  of  the  Opposition.  .  .  . 
Should  Lord  Chatham  wish  to  see  me  before  he  gives 
his  answer,  I  shall  most  certainly  refuse  it.  ...  You 
have  now  full  powers  to  act ;  but  I  do  not  expect  Lord 
Chatham  and  his  crew  will  come  to  your  assistance.' 

*  I  solemnly  declare,'  he  wrote  on  the  following  day, 

*  that  nothing  shall  bring  me  to  treat  personally  with 
Lord  Chatham  ; '  and  again,  a  little  later,  *  No  considera- 
tion in  life  shall  make  me  stoop  to  opposition.'  * 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  the  determination  of  the 
King  at  any  cost  to  his  country,  and  in  defiance  of  the 
most  earnest  representations  of  his  own  minister  and  of 
the  most  eminent  politicians  of  every  party,  to  refuse  to 
send  for  the  greatest  of  living  statesmen  at  the  moment 
when  the  Empire  appeared  to  be  in  the  very  agonies  of 
dissolution,  was  not  solely  or  mainly  due  to  his  own 
opinions  on  the  American  question.  Chatham  had  de- 
clared, as  strongly  as  the  King  himself,  his  determination 
not  to  concede  American  independence ;  and  the  King, 
by  permitting  Lord  North  to  introduce  his  conciliatory 
Bills,  had  sanctioned  the  surrender  of  every  other  con- 
stitutional question  in  dispute.  The  main  motives  that 
influenced  the  King  were  personal.  The  many  provoca- 
tions he  had  undoubtedly  received  from  Chatham  had 
produced  in  his  eminently  sullen  and  rancorous  nature  an 
intensity  of  hatred  which  no  consideration  of  patriotism 
could  overcome,  and  he  also  clearly  saw  that  the  triumph 
of  the  Opposition  would  lead  to  the  destruction  of  that 
system  of  personal  government  which  he  had  so  laboii- 


1  Fox's  Correspondence,  i.  188,  189 ;  Correspondence  of  George 
HI.  with  Lord  North,  ii.  149,  153. 


352        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     CH.  xm. 

ously  built  up.  Either  Chatham  or  Eockingham  would 
'have  insisted  that  the  policy  of  the  country  should  be 
directed  by  its  responsible  ministers,  and  not  dictated 
by  an  irresponsible  sovereign.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
detect  in  the  passionate  expressions  of  the  King  that 
the  great  question  in  whose  hands  the  real  and  efficient 
determination  of  the  policy  of  government  was  to  rest, 
was  that  which  most  deeply  affected  his  mind.  The 
Opposition,  he  said,  *  would  make  me  a  slave  for  the 
remainder  of  my  days.'  '  Whilst  any  ten  men  in  the 
kingdom  will  stand  by  me  I  will  not  give  myself  up 
into  bondage/  '  I  will  never  put  my  hand  to  what 
would  make  me  miserable  to  the  last  hour  of  my  life.' 
'  Rather  than  be  shackled  by  those  desperate  men  (if 
the  nation  will  not  stand  by  me,  which  I  can  never 
suppose),  I  will  rather  see  any  form  of  government 
introduced  into  this  island,  and  lose  my  crown  than 
wear  it  as  a  disgrace.'  No  change,  he  emphatically 
Baid,  should  be  made  in  the  Government  which  did  not 
leave  North  at  its  head,  and  Thurlow,  Suffolk,  Sandwich, 
Gower,  Weymouth,  and  Wedderburn  in  high  office. 
On  such  conditions  he  well  knew  that  he  could  always 
either  govern  or  overthrow  the  administration.1 

This  episode  appears  to  me  the  most  criminal  in  the 
whole  reign  of  George  III.,  and  in  my  own  judgment  it 
is  as  criminal  as  any  of  those  acts  which  led  Charles  I. 
to  the  scaffold.  It  is  remarkable  how  nearly,  many 
years  later,  it  was  reproduced.  Terrible  as  was  the 
condition  of  England  in  1778,  the  dangers  that  menaced 
it  in  1804  were  probably  still  greater.  The  short  peace 
of  Amiens  had  ended ;  Napoleon,  in  the  zenith  of  his 
power  and  glory,  was  preparing  the  invasion  of  England, 
and  the  very  existence  of  the  country  as  a  free  and  in- 

1  Correspondence  of  George  III.  with  Lord  North,  ii.  151,  154, 
156. 


CH.  xm.  OBSTINACY  OF  THE  KING.  353 

dependent  State  was  menaced  by  the  most  extraordinary 
military  genius  of  modern  times,  disposing  of  the 
resources  of  the  greatest  and  most  warlike  of  conti- 
nental nations.  Under  these  circumstances,  Pitt  strenu- 
ously urged  upon  the  King  the  necessity  of  a  coalition 
of  parties,  and  especially  of  the  introduction  of  Fox 
into  the  ministry.  Fox  had  not,  like  Chatham,  shown 
the  genius  of  a  great  war  minister ;  but  he  was  at  the 
head  of  a  powerful  party  in  the  State,  and,  as  he  had 
been  one  of  the  strongest  opponents  of  the  war  when  it 
first  broke  out,  his  acceptance  of  office  would  not  only 
have  given  Government  the  strength  it  greatly  needed, 
but  would  also  have  been  the  most  emphatic  demonstra- 
tion of  the  union  of  all  parties  against  the  invaders. 
But  the  obstinacy  of  the  King  proved  indomitable.  He 
'  expressed  his  astonishment  that  Mr.  Pitt  should  one 
moment  harbour  the  thought  of  bringing  such  a  man 
[as  Fox]  before  his  royal  notice/  He  announced  that 
the  great  Whig  statesman  was  excluded  by  his  '  express 
command ; '  and  when,  in  the  succeeding  year,  Pitt 
resumed  his  efforts,  the  King  said  '  that  he  had  taken 
a  positive  determination  not  to  admit  Mr.  Fox  into  his 
councils,  even  at  the  hazard  of  a  civil  war.' l 

It  is  an  idle,  though  a  curious  question,  whether  it 
would  have  been  possible  for  Chatham  at  the  last  moment 
to  have  induced  the  Americans  to  acquiesce  in  anything 
short  of  complete  independence.  If  the  foregoing 
narrative  be  truly  written,  it  will  appear  manifest  to 
the  reader  that  a  great  part  of  the  American  people  had 
never  really  favoured  the  Eevolution,  and  that  there 
were  many  of  the  remainder  who  would  have  been 
gladly  reunited  with  England  on  terms  which  Chatham 
was  both  ready  and  eager  to  concede.  The  French 
alliance  had,  however,  made  it  a  matter  of  honour  and 


Bussell's  Life  of  Fox,  iii.  330-332,  349. 


354:       ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     CH.  MSI. 

of  treaty  obligation  for  the  Americans  to  continue  the 
struggle,  and  passions  had  risen  to  a  point  that  made 
reconciliation  almost  hopeless.  The  Rockingham  party, 
in  strongly  asserting  that  an  immediate  recognition  of 
American  independence  was  the  true  policy  of  England, 
probably  took  a  more  just  view  of  the  situation  than 
Chatham,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  their  declaration 
would  have  greatly  aggravated  the  difficulty  of  carrying 
out  his  polLy.  Nor  was  it  possible  that  the  task  of 
reconciliation,  even  if  it  were  practicable,  could  have 
been  reserved  for  Chatham.  The  sands  of  that  noble 
life  were  now  almost  run.  On  April  7,  1778,  he 
appeared  for  the  last  time  in  the  House  of  Lords. 
Wrapped  in  flannel,  supported  on  crutches,  led  in  by 
his  son-in-law  Lord  Mahon,  and  by  that  younger  son 
who  was  destined  in  a  few  years  to  rival  his  fame,  he 
had  come  to  protest  against  an  address  moved  by  the 
Duke  of  Richmond  calling  upon  the  King  to  withdraw 
his  forces  by  land  and  sea  from  the  revolted  colonies. 
His  sunk  and  hueless  face,  rendered  the  more  ghastly 
by  the  still  penetrating  brilliancy  of  his  eyes,  bore 
plainly  on  it  the  impress  of  approaching  death,  and  his 
voice  was  barely  audible  in  the  almost  breathless  silence 
of  the  House;  but  something  of  his  old  fire  may  be 
traced  in  the  noble  sentences  of  indomitable  and  defiant 
patriotism  with  which  he  protested  '  against  the  dis- 
memberment of  this  ancient  and  most  noble  monarchy/ 
and  laughed  to  scorn  the  fears  of  invasion.  After  the 
reply  of  the  Duke  of  Richmond,  he  tried  to  rise  again, 
but  fell  back  senseless  in  an  apoplectic  fit.  He  lingered 
till  May  11.  It  was  afterwards  remembered  that,  as 
he  lay  on  his  death-bed  looking  forward  to  his  own 
immediate  end,  he  caused  his  son  to  read  to  him  the 
passage  in  Homer  describing  the  stately  obsequies  of 
Hector  and  the  sorrow  and  despair  of  Troy. 

The  death  of  Chatham  would  under  any  circumstances 


CTI.  XTII.  DEATH   OF   CHATHAM.  355 

have  made  a  profound  and  general  impression,  and  the 
closing  scene  in  the  House  of  Lords  was  eminently 
fitted  to  enhance  it.  It  was  an  exit,  indeed,  combining 
every  element  of  sublimity  and  pathos.  So  awful  a 
close  of  so  glorious  a  career,  the  eclipse  of  a  light  that  had 
filled  the  world  with  its  splendour,  the  remembrance  of 
the  imperishable  glory  with  which  the  dying  statesman 
had  irradiated,  not  only  his  country,  but  the  dynasty 
that  ruled  it,  the  prescience  with  which  he  had  pro- 
tested at  every  stage  against  the  measures  that  had 
ruined  it,  the  lofty  patriotism  which,  amid  many  failings 
and  some  follies,  had  never  ceased  to  animate  his  career 
— appealed  in  the  strongest  manner  to  every  sensitive 
and  noble  nature.  Lord  North  showed  on  the  occasion 
the  good-feeling  and  generosity  which  never  failed  to 
distinguish  him  when  he  was  able  to  act  upon  his  own 
impulses ;  and  Burke,  though  he  had  long  and  deeply 
disliked  Chatham,  combined  with  Fox  in  paying  an  elo- 
quent tribute  to  his  memory.  The  vote  of  a  public 
funeral  and  monument,  and  a  Bill  paying  the  debts  of 
the  deceased  statesman  and  annexing,  for  all  future 
time,  an  annuity  of  4,OOOZ.  a  year  to  the  title  of  Chatham, 
were  carried  almost  unanimously  through  Parliament. 
Beneath  this  decorous  appearance,  however,  we  may 
trace  some  very  different  feelings,  and  there  were  those 
who  looked  with  indiiference,  if  not  with  pleasure,  on 
the  death  of  Chatham.  When  he  was  struck  down  by 
the  fatal  fit  the  King  wrote  curtly  and  coldly  to  North, 
'  May  not  the  political  exit  of  Lord  Chatham  incline 
you  to  continue  at  the  head  of  affairs  ? '  When  Parlia- 
ment a  little  later  voted  a  public  funeral  for  the  most 
illustrious  of  English  statesmen,  the  King  wrote,  '  I  was 
rather  surprised  the  House  of  Commons  have  unani- 
mously voted  an  address  for  a  public  funeral  and  a 
monument  in  Westminster  Abbey  for  Lord  Chatham, 
"but  I  trust  it  is  voted  as  a  testimony  of  gratitude  for 


356        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,    en.  HII. 

his  rousing  the  nation  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  war 
...  or  this  compliment,  if  paid  to  his  general  conduct, 
is  rather  an  offensive  measure  to  me  personally.'  When 
the  funeral  took  place  it  was  observed  that  all  persons 
connected  with  the  Court  were  conspicuously  absent.1 

Among  the  politicians  of  the  Opposition  also  there 
were  some  who  looked  upon  the  removal  of  Chatham  in 
a  very  similar  spirit.  The  Duke  of  Portland,  who  at  a 
later  period  became  the  head  of  the  Whig  connection, 
wrote  to  Buckingham  declining,  on  the  plea  of  private 
business,  and  in  terms  that  are  singularly  disgraceful 
both  to  his  head  and  heart,  to  be  present  at  the  funeral 
of  Chatham.  *  I  feel  no  inducement,'  he  wrote,  *  to 
attend  the  ceremony  this  morning,  but  the  pleasure  of 
meeting  you.'  He  approved  of  the  conduct  of  Lord 
Rockingham  in  attending  the  funeral,  but  added  a  sen- 
tence, which  is  peculiarly  painful  as  showing  the 
opinion  of  the  man  to  whom,  beyond  all  others,  Chatham 
was  attached  by  the  warmest  personal  and  political 
friendship.  '  Lord  Camden  might  possibly  not  be  much 
mistaken  in  considering  Lord  Chatham's  death  as  a 
fortunate  event.' 2  Chatham,  indeed,  though  in  his  own 
family  he  was  one  of  the  most  amiable  of  men,  and 
though  in  the  country  at  large  he  was  the  object  of  an 
almost  adoring  affection,  never  had  the  power  of  attach- 
ing to  himself  real  private  friends.  Camden  and  Shel- 
burne  were  the  two  statesmen  to  whom  he  appears  to  have 
given  his  fullest  confidence,  but  Camden  considered  his 
death  a  fortunate  event,  and  Shelburne,  in  his  posthu- 
mous memoir,  did  the  utmost  in  his  power  to  blacken 
his  memory.  

1  Correspondence    of    George  of  Chatham,  which  Lord   Stan- 
III.  with  Lord  North,  ii.  171,  hope  prints   from  the   Grafton 
184-186.  papers,   Camden    speaks  some- 

2  Albemarle's    Life   of  Bock-  what  more  feelingly  on  the  sub- 
ingham,  ii.  356,  357.    In  a  letter  ject.      See,   too,   the    Chatham 
written  immediately  after  the  fit  Correspondence,  iv.  519-528. 


en.  xni.  ENGLISH    OPINION    ON    THE    WAR.  357 

His  death,  though  it  gave  substantial  unity  to  the 
Opposition,  no  doubt  on  the  whole  strengthened  the 
Government.  By  far  the  greatest  name  opposed  to 
it  was  removed,  and  nearly  the  whole  Opposition 
now  advocated  the  concession  of  complete  American 
independence,  for  which  the  country  was  most  cer- 
tainly as  yet  not  prepared.  The  declaration  of  France 
aroused  the  indignation  of  the  nation  and  changed 
the  sentiments  ol  many.  Perhaps  the  class  among 
whom  the  Americans  had  hitherto  found  the  warmest 
and  most  uncompromising  friends  were  the  Presby- 
terians of  Ulster,  and  a  letter  from  Buckingham,  the 
Lord  Lieutenant,  written  immediately  after  the  new 
war  had  become  inevitable,  asserts  that  '  by  accounts 
received  from  very  good  authority,  the  idea  of  a 
French  war  has  not  only  altered  the  language  but  the 
disposition  of  the  Presbyterians.' 1  In  England,  too, 
many  who  had  refused  to  regard  the  Americans  as 
enemies,  determined,  as  a  matter  of  patriotism,  to 
rally  round  the  Government,  now  that  a  foreign  en- 
emy was  in  the  field.2  The  militia  were  called  out ; 
some  great  noblemen  undertook  to  raise  regiments. 
The  old  spirit  of  international  rivalry,  the  old  self- 
confidence,  and  the  old  pugnacity  were  fully  stirred, 
and  the  nation  prepared  with  a  thrill  of  not  unjoyful 
enthusiasm  to  encounter  its  old  enemy.3 

In  America  the  intervention  of  France  speedily 
changed  the  conditions  of  the  war.  Philadelphia, 
though  it  had  so  lately  been  the  seat  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary Congress,  never  appears  to  have  shown  any 
restlessness  under  the  English  occupation.  There  were, 
no  doubt,  many  Whigs  among  the  young  men,  and  a 


1  Buckingham     to    Weymouth  ii.  232,  233. 

(Private),     March     29,     1778.—  3  See    Lady   Minto's    Life    of 

MSS.,  Record  Office.  Hugh  Elliot,  pp.  142-145. 

2  See  Walpole's  Last  Journals, 


358         ENGLAND    IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.    en.  xm. 

portion  of  the  population  had  emigrated,  but  there 
appears  to  have  been  no  popular  movement  against  the 
English,  no  difficulty  in  supplying  them  with  all  that 
they  required,  no  necessity  for  any  military  measures 
of  exceptional  stringency,  no  signs  of  that  genuine 
dislike  which  had  been  so  abundantly  displayed  at 
Boston.  The  English  officers  were  received  in  the 
best  society  with  much  more  than  toleration,  and  they 
soon  became  extremely  popular.  The  winter  during 
which  the  forces  of  W  ashington  remained  half -starved 
at  Yalley  Forge,  and  in  which  their  commander  com- 
plained so  bitterly  of  the  sullen  or  hostile  attitude 
of  the  population,  was  long  remembered  in  Phila- 
delphia for  its  gaiety  and  its  charm.  In  May,  1778, 
a  more  than  commonly  splendid  festival  was  given  by 
the  English  officers  in  honour  of  Sir  William  Howe, 
who  was  just  leaving  America,  and  of  his  brother. 
It  was  called  the  Mischianza,  and  comprised  a  mag- 
nificent tournament,  a  regatta,  a  ball,  and  a  great  dis- 
play of  fireworks,  with  innumerable  emblems  and 
exhibitions  of  loyalty  to  England.  It  brought  to- 
gether one  of  the  most  brilliant  assemblages  ever 
known  of  the  youth,  beauty,  and  fashion  of  Phila- 
delphia, and  it  was  afterwards  remembered  that  the 
unfortunate  Major  Andre  was  one  of  the  most  prom- 
inent in  organising  the  entertainment,  and  that  the 
most  admired  of  the  Philadelphian  beauties  who 
adorned  it  was  Miss  Shippen,  soon  after  to  become 
the  wife  of  Benedict  Arnold.1 


1  Many      curious      particulars  Jones's  History  has  preserved  a 

about    the    Mischianza    will     be  remarkably    pretty    poem    by    a 

found  in  Arnold's  Life  of  Bene-  Philadelphian     lady     describing 

diet   Arnold,   pp.    224-227,    and  the  charm  of  the  English  occu- 

Jones's    Hist,    of  New    York,   i.  pation   of   that  town.     Some  in- 

241-251,    716-720.     A    pen-and-  teresting  letters  describing  Phila- 

ink   sketch   of   Miss   Shippen   in  delphia  in  the  summer  of  1778, 

the  Mischianza,  drawn  by  Andre,  written    by    Eden    the    Commis- 

is  still  preserved.     The  editor  of  sioner  and  by  his  wife,  will  be 


CH.  xin.  PHILADELPHIA    EVACUATED.  359 

Very  soon,  however,  the  aspect  of  affairs  was 
changed,  and  in  June,  1778,  Clinton,  in  consequence  of 
express  orders  from  England,  evacuated  Philadelphia, 
and  prepared  to  fall  back  on  ISTew  York.  The  blow 
was  a  terrible  one,  and  no  less  than  3,000  of  the  in- 
habitants went  into  banishment  with  the  British  army.1 
The  Delaware  was  crowded  with  ships  bearing  broken- 
hearted fugitives  who  had  left  nearly  all  they  possessed, 
and  of  those  who  remained  many  were  banished  or 
imprisoned  by  the  Americans.  The  retreat  was  ef- 
fected without  much  difficulty,  though  the  Americans 
tried  to  impede  it,  and  fought  a  battle  with  that  object 
at  Monmouth.  In  July,  Count  D'Estaing  arrived  on; 
the  coast  with  a  French  fleet  of  twelve  ships  of  the 
line,  four  frigates,  and  about  4,000  French  soldiers. 
He  had  hoped  to  find  Lord  Howe's  fleet  still  in  the 
Delaware,  where  it  had  gone  to  co-operate  with  the 
army  in  Philadelphia,  and  as  that  fleet  was  less  than 
half  the  size  of  his  own,  it  would  in  this  case  scarcely 
have  escaped.  The  English,  however,  were  already 
at  New  York,  and  D'Estaing  followed  them  there ; 
but  though  he  for  a  time  blockaded,  he  did  not  at- 
tempt to  force  the  harbour.  The  French  had  for  a 
few  weeks  a  complete  command  of  the  sea,  and  by  the 
advice  of  Washington  an  attempt  was  made  to  cap- 
ture, or  annihilate,  the  British  force  which  had  occu- 
pied Rhode  Island  since  December,  1776,  and  which 
now  amounted  to  about  6,000  men.  An  American 
force  of  10,000  men,  consisting  partly  of  a  section 


found  in   Lady  Minto's   Life  of  quietness  of  the  town,  that  you 

Hugh  Elliot,  pp.  173-178.     Mrs.  are   not   in   a   city    perfectly    at 

Eden   writes :    '  I  found  the   ac-  peace    and    at    ease.     As   to   se- 

count  we  had  heard  of  so  much  curity,  I  feel  quite  as  safe  here 

apparent    distress    in    the    town  as  if  I  was  in  my  own  dressing- 

perfectly  false  ;  indeed  it  is  quite  room  in  Downing  Street,'  p.  17G. 

impossible     to    believe     by     the  l  Ibid.  p.  177. 
people's   faces   and   the   extreme 


3 GO         ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTUKY.    en.  xnr. 

of  the  army  of  Washington  and  partly  of  militia 
and  volunteers  raised  in  New  England,  was  placed 
under  the  command  of  General  Sullivan,  and  it 
succeeded  on  August  9  in  landing  on  the  island. 
The  French  fleet  had  a  few  days  before  forced  its 
way  into  Newport  harbour  and  obliged  the  English 
to  burn  several  transports  and  warships  in  order 
to  prevent  them  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  the 
enemy. 

The  operations  of  the  French  and  Americans  ap- 
pear, however,  to  have  been  badly  combined,  and  they 
ended  in  complete  and  somewhat  ignominious  failure. 
Four  ships  of  the  line — the  first  ships  of  a  fleet  sent 
from  England  under  Admiral  Byron — had  just  joined 
Lord  Howe,  who  hastened,  though  still  inferior  to 
the  French,  to  encounter  them,  when  a  great  storm 
separated  and  dispersed  the  rival  fleets,  and  greatly 
injured  some  of  the  French  ships.  To  the  extreme 
indignation  of  the  Americans,  and  in  spite  of  an  angry 
written  protest  by  Sullivan,  the  French  admiral  refused 
to  pursue  the  enterprise,  and  withdrew  his  ships  under 
the  shelter  of  the  batteries  of  Boston.  Between  two 
and  three  thousand  of  the  troops  of  Sullivan  at  once 
deserted,  and  it  was  with  much  difficulty,  and  after 
some  hard  fighting,  that  the  remainder  succeeded  in 
effecting  their  retreat.1  Clinton,  with  4,000  men,  had 


1  The  deep  disappointment  of  tainty  of  success  rendered  it  a 
Washington  appears  clearly  in  matter  of  rejoicing,  to  get  our 
his  letter  to  his  brother.  '  An  own  troops  safe  off  the  island, 
unfortunate  storm  (so  it  ap-  If  the  garrison  of  that  place,  con- 
p eared,  and  yet  ultimately  it  sisting  of  nearly  6,000  men,  had 
may  have  happened  for  the  been  captured,  as  there  was  in 
best),  and  some  measures  taken  appearance  at  least  a  hundred 
in  consequence  of  it  by  the  to  one  in  favour  of  it,  it  would 
French  admiral,  perhaps  un-  have  given  the  finishing  blow  to 
avoidably  blasted  in  one  moment  British  pretensions  of  sovereignty 
the  fairest  hopes  that  ever  were  over  this  country.'  —  Washing- 
conceived,  and  from  a  moral  cer-  ton's  Works,  vi.  68,  69. 


CH.  xm.  CAPTURE    OF    SAVANNAH.  361 

hastened  to  the  relief  of  Rhode  Island,  but  owing  to 
adverse  winds  he  arrived  just  too  late,  and  returned 
to  New  York. 

Several  small  expeditions,  however,  were  made,  and 
the  war  on  the  part  of  the  English  was  in  1YY8  carried 
on  with  energy  and  success,  but  sometimes  with  great 
harshness  and  barbarity.  They  destroyed  two  or  three 
little  naval  towns  which  had  been  conspicuous  resorts 
of  American  privateers,  burnt  numerous  houses  and 
great  quantities  of  shipping,  and  carried  away  much 
cattle  and  large  stores  of  arms.  They  surprised  by  a 
night  attack  a  regiment  of  light  cavalry  in  New  Jersey, 
and  also  a  email  brigade  under  Count  Pulaski,  and  they 
almost  cut  them  to  pieces,  little  or  no  quarter  being 
given.  A  more  considerable  expedition  was  sent  to 
Georgia,  where  the  loyalist  feeling  had  always  been 
very  strong,  and  it  speedily  captured  Savannah,  the 
capital  of  the  province,  and  drove  the  American  troops 
into  South  Carolina.  The  inhabitants  of  Georgia  for 
the  most  part  gladly  took  the  oath  of  allegiance  ;  many 
of  them  bore  arms  in  the  service  of  the  Crown,  and  a 
State  legislature  acknowledging  the  royal  authority 
was  once  more  established  in  the  province.  Some 
predatory  guerilla  war  was  carried  on  with  various 
success  along  the  borders  of  Florida,  and  a  very  hor- 
rible Indian  war  raged  near  the  Susquehanna.  The 
desolation  of  the  new  and  nourishing  settlement  of 
Wyoming  by  900  Indians,  accompanied  by  about  200 
loyalists  under  Colonel  John  Butler,  has  furnished  the 
subject  of  a  well-known  poem  by  Campbell.  It  was 
accompanied  by  all  those  circumstances  of  murder, 
torture,  and  outrage  that  usually  followed  Indian  war- 
fare, and  about  three  months  later  it  was  terribly 
avenged  by  some  Pennsylvanian  troops  under  another 
Colonel  Butler.  In  November  D'Estaing  sailed  from 
Boston,  quickly  followed  by  an  English  fleet,  to  carry 
the  war  into  the  West  Indies. 


362        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.    CH.  xin. 

The  rapid  growth  of  the  navy  of  France  was  the 
most  alarming  feature  of  the  year,  but  on  the  whole 
the  English  appeared  still  to  hold  their  accustomed 
pre-eminence  in  seamanship.  It  was  feared  that  the 
sudden  outbreak  of  the  war  with  France  would  lead  to 
the  destruction  of  a  great  part  of  the  British  commerce 
which  was  now  afloat,  but  these  fears  were  not  realised. 
By  sound  seamanship,  by  good  fortune,  and  by  the 
neglect  of  the  enemy,  an  important  fleet  of  merchant- 
men from  the  East  Indies,  another  from  Lisbon,  and  a 
third  from  Jamaica,  all  arrived  in  safety,1  while  English 
privateers  swept  every  sea  with  their  usual  enterprise 
and  success.  It  was  computed  that  by  the  end  of  1778 
the  Americans  alone  had  lost  not  less  than  900  vessels.2 

The  internal  dissensions,  and  the  great  want  of  any 
efficient  organisation  which  had  hitherto  impaired  the 
American  enterprises,  continued  unabated.  At  the  end 
of  1777  there  was  a  long  and  bitter  cabal  against 
Washington  by  Generals  Gates,  Mifiin,  and  Conway, 
supported  by  some  members  of  Congress,  and  forged 
letters  attributed  to  Washington  were  printed  and 
widely  disseminated.  Lee,  who  had  now  been  ex- 
changed and  again  put  at  the  head  of  an  American 
army,  was  removed  from  his  command  by  court-martial 
on  account  of  his  disobedience  to  Washington  at  the 
battle  of  Monmouth,  followed  by  disrespectful  language 
to  his  chief.  An  extreme  jealousy  of  the  army  was  one 
of  the  strongest  feelings  of  Congress,  and  a  long  and 
painful  dispute  took  place  with  the  cornmander-in-chief 
about  the  wisdom  of  providing  half-pay  for  the  Ameri- 
can officers  when  the  war  was  over.  In  some  very  re- 
markable and  well-reasoned  letters,  Washington  urged 
its  absolute  necessity.  '  Men  may  speculate,'  he  wrote, 
'  as  they  will ;  they  may  talk  of  patriotism ;  they  may 


Walpole's  Last  Journals,  ii.  289-292.         2  Hildreth,  iii.241. 


CH.  xin.  AMERICAN  HALF-PAY.  363 

draw  a  few  examples  from  ancient  stories  of  great 
achievements  performed  by  its  influence ;  but  whoever 
builds  upon  them  as  a  sufficient  basis  for  conducting  a 
long  and  bloody  war,  will  find  himself  deceived  in  the 
end.  ...  I  know  patriotism  exists,  and  I  know  it  has 
done  much  in  the  present  contest ;  but  I  will  venture 
to  assert  that  a  great  and  lasting  war  can  never  be 
supported  on  this  principle  alone.  It  must  be  aided 
by  a  prospect  of  interest  or  some  reward/  In  the  Eng- 
lish army  commissions  were  so  valuable  that  companies 
had  lately  been  sold  for  from  1,500Z.  to  2,200Z.,  and 
4,000  guineas  had  been  given  for  a  troop  of  dragoons. 
In  America  all  prices  had  risen  to  such  a  point  through 
the  depreciated  currency,  that  it  was  scarcely  possible  for 
an  American  officer  to  live  upon  his  pay,  and  he  had 
nothing  to  look  forward  to  when  his  service  had  ex- 
pired. The  result  of  this  state  of  things  was  abund- 
antly seen  in  *  the  frequent  defection  of  officers  seduced 
by  views  of  private  interest  and  emolument  to  abandon 
the  cause  of  their  country,'  *  Scarce  a  day  passes  with- 
out the  offer  of  two  or  three  commissions,'  and  '  num- 
bers who  had  gone  home  on  furlough  mean  not  to 
return,  but  are  establishing  themselves  in  more  lucra- 
tive employments/  '  The  salvation  of  the  cause,' 
Washington  solemnly  avowed,  depends  on  the  estab- 
lishment of  some  system  of  half-pay,  and  without  it  the 
*  officers  will  moulder  to  nothing,  or  be  composed  of 
low  and  illiterate  men  void  of  capacity  for  this  or  any 
other  business/  '  The  large  fortunes  acquired  by  num- 
bers out  of  the  army  afford  a  contrast  that  gives  poign- 
ancy to  every  inconvenience  from  remaining  in  it/ 
But  for  the  sudden  prospect  of  a  speedy  termination 
of  the  war  given  by  the  French  alliance,  Washington 
doubted  whether  in  the  beginning  of  1779  America 
would  have  '  more  than  the  shadow  of  an  army/  and 
in  spite  of  that  alliance  he  believed  that  few  officers 


364       ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


ca.  si  ii. 


could  or  would  remain  on  the  present  establishment.1 
A  compromise  was  at  last  effected  in  1778  by  which 
the  officers  who  served  to  the  end  of  the  war  were  to 
receive  half-pay  for  seven  years,  and  the  common 
soldiers  who  served  to  the  end  of  the  war  a  gratuity  of 
80  dollars.2 

The  enlistments,  as  usual,  continued  very  slow. 
Scarcely  a  third  part  of  the  men  voted  by  the  different 
states  actually  came  in,  and  it  was  found  necessary  to 
take  extraordinary  measures  to  obtain  recruits.  In  the 
beginning -of  the  war  a  few  free  negroes  had  been  ad- 
mitted into  the  army  of  Washington,  and  in  1778  a 
regiment  of  slaves  was  raised  in  Rhode  Island.  They 
were  promised  their  freedom  at  the  close  of  the  war, 
and  the  owners  were  compensated  for  their  loss.  The 
negroes  proved  excellent  soldiers  ;  in  a  hard-fought 
battle  that  secured  the  retreat  of  Sullivan  they  three 
times  drove  back  a  large  body  of  Hessians,  and  during 
the  latter  years  of  the  war  large  numbers  of  slaves  were 
enlisted  in  several  states.3 

Some  recruits  were  also  drawn  from  another  and 
a  much  more  shameful  source.  The  convention  of 
Saratoga  had  explicitly  provided  that  the  captive  army 
of  Burgoyne  should  without  delay  be  sent  to  Boston, 
and  should  there  be  met  by  English  transports  and 
embarked  for  England,  on  the  condition  that  it  should 
not  serve  in  North  America  during  the  existing  war. 
This  article  was  naturally  disliked  by  the  Congress, 
as  it  allowed  the  English  troops  to  be  employed 
either  in  home  garrisons  or  in  foreign  service,  except 
in  America,  and  it  was  deliberately  and  most  dis- 
honourably violated.  The  keen  legal  gentlemen  who 

1  Washington's  Works,  v.  305,  «  See  Historical  Notes  on  the 

812,  313,  322,  323,  328,  351 ;  vi.  Employment  of  Negroes  in  the 

168.  American  Army,  by  George  H, 

8  Hildreth,  iii.  245.  Moore. 


CH.  xin.  THE   VIOLATED   CONVENTION.  365 

directed  the  proceedings  of  Congress  had  no  difficulty 
in  discovering  pretexts,  though  they  were  so  flimsy  that 
it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  any  upright  man  could 
for  a  moment  have  admitted  them.  Something  was 
said  about  a  deficiency  in  the  number  of  cartouche 
boxes  surrendered,  but  the  ground  ultimately  taken 
was  an  expression  in  a  letter  of  General  Burgoyne. 
Shortly  after  the  surrender  six  or  seven  English  officers 
had  been  crowded  together  in  one  room  without  any 
distinction  of  rank,  contrary  to  the  7th  article  of  the 
convention,  and  Burgoyne,  in  remonstrating  against 
the  proceeding,  had  incautiously  used  the  expression, 
'  the  public  faith  is  broken.'  This,  the  Congress  main- 
tained, was  equivalent  to  a  repudiation  of  the  conven- 
tion by  one  of  its  signers.  Burgoyne  at  once  wrote 
disclaiming  any  such  intention,  and  he  formally  pledged 
himself  that  his  officers  would  join  with  him  in  signing 
any  instrument  that  was  thought  necessary  for  confirm- 
ing the  convention,  and  removing  all  possible  doubt  of 
its  being  binding  upon  the  English  Government.  The 
Congress,  however,  pretended  to  be  unsatisfied,  and  re- 
solved to  detain  the  English  troops  '  till  a  distinct  and 
explicit  ratification  of  the  convention  of  Saratoga  be  pro- 
perly notified  by  the  Court  of  Great  Britain  to  Congress.' 
No  such  ratification  could  be  obtained  for  several 
months,  and  it  was  doubtful  whether  the  English 
would  consent  to  it,  as  it  involved  a  recognition  of 
the  Congress,  and  was  at  the  same  time  absolutely 
without  necessity,  according  to  the  terms  of  the  con- 
vention. The  commissioners,  however,  who  came  to 
America  in  1778  with  the  fullest  powers  to  negotiate 
on  the  part  of  the  King  and  Parliament,  offered  to  re- 
new the  convention ;  and  Sir  H.  Clinton  subsequently 
sent  to  the  Congress  instructions  from  the  English 
Secretary  of  State  authorising  him  expressly  to  demand 
a  fulfilment  of  its  terms,  and,  if  required,  to  ratify  in 


366   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xin. 

the  King's  name  all  the  conditions  stipulated  in  it ;  but 
the  Congress  still  refused  to  release  the  prisoners,  who 
were  thus  by  an  act  of  barefaced  treachery  detained  in 
America  for  several  years.1  After  a  time,  many  of 
them  were  persuaded  to  enlist  in  the  American  army, 
and  Massachusetts  appears  to  have  especially  employed 
them  as  substitutes  for  her  own  citizens,  who  refused 
to  serve.  Washington  strongly  censured  this  practice, 
which  was  as  impolitic  as  it  was  dishonourable,  for 
many  of  the  captive  soldiers  only  joined  the  American 
army  in  order  to  escape,  and  soon  found  themselves  again 
under  their  own  flag,  where,  under  the  very  peculiar 
circumstances  of  the  case,  they  were  gladly  welcomed.2 
On  the  part  of  the  English  there  were  manifest  signs 
of  a  fiercer  spirit  and  a  harsher  policy  than  had  hitherto 
been  pursued,  and  a  very  bad  impression  was  made  by 
some  sentences  in  the  address  issued  by  the  English 
Commissioners  before  they  left  the  continent  after  their 
unsuccessful  mission.  While  making  wide  offers  of 
pardon  and  reconciliation  to  the  separate  states  and  to 
all  individuals  who  renewed  their  allegiance  to  the 
Crown,  they  added  that  hitherto  the  English  had  as 
much  as  possible  '  checked  the  extremes  of  war,  when 
they  tended  to  distress  a  people  still  considered  as  our 
fellow-subjects  and  to  desolate  a  country  shortly  to 
become  again  a  source  of  mutual  advantage.'  By  throw- 
ing themselves  into  the  arms  of  the  natural  enemy  of 
England,  the  Americans  had  changed  the  nature  of  the 
contest,  'and  the  question  is,  how  far  Great  Britain 
may  by  every  means  in  her  power  destroy  or  render 

1  Eamsay,  ii.  56,  57  ;  Stedman,  United  States,  iii.  237,  255,256), 

ii.  56,  57.     That   excellent  and  which  is  much  more  honourable 

most    impartial    American   his-  to    his    countrymen    than    the 

torian,  Mr.  Hildreth,  has  related  laboured  apologies  of  Mr.  Ban- 

the  circumstances  of  this  trans-  croft. 

action  with  a  severe  and  simple  2  Washington's  Works,  v.  287« 

truthfulness     (History    of    the  346, 317. 


en.  mi.  CHARGES   AGAINST  THE  ENGLISH.  367 

useless  a  connection  contrived  for  her  ruin  and  for  the 
aggrandisement  of  France.  Under  such  circumstances 
the  laws  of  self-preservation  must  direct  the  conduct  of 
Great  Britain ;  and  if  the  British  colonies  are  to  become 
an  accession  to  France,  will  direct  her  to  render  that 
accession  of  as  little  avail  as  possible  to  her  enemy/ 1 

It  is  extremely  difficult  amidst  the  enormous  exagge- 
rations propagated  by  the  American  press  to  ascertain 
how  far  the  English  in  this  contest  really  exceeded  the 
ordinary  rights  of  war.  It  was  the  manifest  interest  of 
the  revolutionary  party  to  aggravate  their  misdeeds  to 
the  utmost,  both  for  the  purpose  of  inflaming  the  very 
languid  passions  of  their  own  people  and  of  arousing 
the  indignation  of  Europe,  and  much  was  said  in  the 
excitement  of  the  contest  which  seems  singularly  absurd 
when  judged  in  the  dispassionate  light  of  history. 
George  III.  was  habitually  represented  as  a  second 
Nero.  The  Howes — who,  whatever  may  have  been 
their  other  faults,  were  certainly  free  from  the  smallest 
tendency  towards  inhumanity — were  ranked  *  in  the 
annals  of  infamy'  with  Pizarro,  Alva,  and  Borgia. 
There  were  proposals  for  striking  medals  representing 
on  one  side  the  atrocities  committed  by  the  English, 
and  on  the  other  the  admirable  actions  of  the  Americans 
— for  depicting  British  barbarities  upon  the  common 
coins,  for  introducing  them  as  illustrations  into  school- 
books  in  order  to  educate  the  American  youth  into  un- 
dying hatred  of  England.2  If  we  put  aside  the  Indian 
wars,  it  does  not  appear  to  me  that  anything  was  done 
in  America  that  was  not  very  common  in  European 
wars,  but  there  were  undoubtedly  many  acts  committed 
for  which  the  English  had  deep  reason  to  be  ashamed. 

1  Stedman,  ii.  60,  61.  i.   500-507 ;    iii.   107,  127,  128. 

2  See  Moore's    Diary   of  the      Adam's    Familiar    Letters,  pp. 
American  War,  passim.    Ameri-       258,  259,  266. 

can  Diplomatic  Correspondence, 


868   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  *m. 

Owing  apparently  to  a  want  of  management  or  proper 
organisation,  the  American  prisoners  who  had  been  con- 
fined in  New  York  and  Fort  Washington  after  the 
battle  at  Long  Island  were  so  emaciated  and  broken 
down  by  scandalous  neglect  or  ill-usage  that  Washing- 
ton refused  to  receive  them  in  exchange  for  an  equal 
number  of  healthy  British  and  Hessian  troops.1  There 
were  numerous  instances  of  plunder  and  burning  of 
private  houses  brought  home  to  the  British  soldiers  or 
to  their  German  allies ;  and  several  small  towns  were 
deliberately  burnt  because  they  had  fired  on  the  British 
soldiers,  because  they  had  become  active  centres  of 
privateering,  or  because  they  contained  stores  and  maga- 
zines that  might  be  useful  to  the  American  army. 

In  the  horrible  tragedy  at  Wyoming  the  English  do 
not  appear  to  have  been  directly  concerned,  but  some 
American  loyalists  took  part  in,  or  prompted  its  worst 
atrocities,  and  the  hatred  between  the  loyalists  and  the 
Whigs  became  continually  stronger.  The  former  were 
being  rapidly  driven  to  despair.  The  wholesale  con- 
fiscation of  their  properties;  their  shameful  abandon- 
ment on  many  occasions  by  the  British  troops;  the 
innumerable  insults  and  injuries  inflicted  on  them  by 
their  own  countrymen ;  and  the  almost  certain  prospect 
that  England  must  sooner  or  later  relinquish  America, 
had  rendered  their  position  intolerable.  The  Congress, 
by  a  resolution  passed  in  December  1777,  ordered  that 
all  loyalists  taken  in  arms  in  the  British  service  should 
be  sent  to  the  States  to  which  they  belonged  to  suffer 
the  penalties  inflicted  by  the  laws  of  such  States  against 
traitors.2  When  Philadelphia  was  reoccupied  by  the 
Americans,  Washington  vainly  desired  that  pardon 
should  be  granted  to  such  loyalists  as  consented  to  remain 


1  See  Washington's  Works,  i.  240,  241 ;  iv.  380-386,  557-559. 
«  Ibid.  v.  308,  309. 


CH.  xin.  AMERICAN   ACTS    OF   HUMANITY.  369 

in  the  town,  but  no  such  proposition  was  listened  to. 
Two  Quaker  gentlemen  of  considerable  position  in  Phila- 
delphia, who  were  convicted  of  having  actively  assisted 
the  English  during  the  period  of  the  occupation,  were 
hanged ;  and  twenty-three  others  were  brought  to  trial 
but  acquitted. 

It  is,  however,  but  justice  to  the  Americans  to  add 
that,  except  in  their  dealings  with  their  loyal  fellow- 
countrymen,  their  conduct  during  the  war  appears  to 
have  been  almost  uniformly  humane.  No  charges  of 
neglect  of  prisoners,  like  those  which  were  brought, 
apparently  with  too  good  reason,  against  the  English 
were  substantiated  against  them.  The  conduct  of 
Washington  was  marked  by  a  steady  and  careful 
humanity,  and  Franklin  also  appears  to  have  done  much 
to  mitigate  the  war.  It  was  noticed  by  Burke,  that 
when  a  great  storm  desolated  the  West  Indian  Islands  in 
1780,  Franklin  issued  orders  that  provision-ships  should 
pass  unmolested  to  the  British  as  well  as  to  the  other 
isles,  while  the  English  thought  this  a  proper  time  to 
send  an  expedition  against  St.  Vincent's,  to  recover  it 
from  the  French.1  In  the  instructions  which  Franklin 
gave  to  Paul  Jones  in  1779,  he  ordered  him  not  to 
follow  the  English  example  of  burning  defenceless 
towns,  except  in  cases  where  '  a  reasonable  ransom  is 
refused,'  and  even  then  to  give  such  timely  notice  as 
would  enable  the  inhabitants  to  remove  the  women  and 
children,  the  sick  and  the  aged.2  In  the  same  year  he 
issued  directions  to  all  American  captains  who  might 
encounter  the  great  nagivator,  Captain  Cook,  not  only 
not  to  molest  him,  but  to  give  him  every  assistance  in 
their  power  as  a  benefactor  to  the  whole  human  race.3 

1  Parl.  Hist.  xxii.  220.  3  Ibid.  pp.  67,  68.    It  must  be 

2  American  Diplomatic  Corre-       admitted,  however,  that  as  early 
spondence,  iii.  78.  as  1777  both  Franklin  and  Deane 


370       ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     CM.  xiii. 

The  relations  of  the  Americans  with  their  new  allies 
were  by  no  means  untroubled.  In  the  army  the  jealousy 
between  the  American  and  the  foreign  officers  was 
extreme.  Even  Washington  was  once  tempted  to 
express  a  wish  that  there  was  not  a  single  foreigner  in 
the  army  except  Lafayette,1  and  some  of  the  strongest 
feelings  of  the  American  population  were  shocked  by 
the  alliance  with  the  French.  The  New  Englanders 
had  always  been  taught  to  regard  France  as  a  natural 
enemy,  and  they  were  Protestants  of  Protestants.  Con- 
gress, having  very  lately  expressed  its  unbounded 
horror  at  the  encouragement  by  England  of  Popery  in 
Canada,  had  now  allied  itself  with  the  leading  Catholic 
power  against  the  leading  Protestant  power  of  Europe. 
Very  bitter  indignation  was  felt  and  expressed  at  the 
conduct  of  Count  D'Estaing  in  retiring  from  Khode 
Island,  and  it  needed  all  the  tact  and  unvarying  mode- 
ration of  Washington  to  prevent  at  this  time  an  open 
outbreak.  At  Boston  and  at  Charleston  there  were 
violent  riots  between  the  French  sailors  and  the  popu- 
lace, and  several  lives  were  lost. 

had  given  their  full  approbation  in  Connecticut  and  Virginia.     In 

to  projects  that  were  entertained  1779  Congress  ordered  the  marine 

of  burning  and  plundering  Liver-  committee  to  take  measures  for 

pool  and  Glasgow  (ibid.  i.  92, 298).  burning  and  destroying  towns  be- 

I  have  already  noticed  the  Ameri-  longing  to  the  enemy  in  Great 

can  proposals  for  burning  New  Britain  and  the  West  Indies  as  a 

York  and  desolating  the  surround-  measure  of  retaliation,  but  thia 

ing  country  (supra,  pp.  356, 357),  order  was  never  carried  into  effect 

and  Lee  strongly  recommended  (Adolphus,  iii.  59).    Lord  Corn- 

the  burning  of  Philadelphia  in  wallis   asserts  that  the   Ameri- 

1776.  (Moore's  Treason  of  Charles  cans  treated  their  prisoners  in 

Lee,  p.  69.)  Washington  contem-  S.  Carolina  with  an  '  inhumanity 

plated    burning    Newport,    the  scarcely  credible,'  and  that  seve- 

capital  of  Khode  Island  (Wash-  ral  were  barbarously  murdered 

ington's  Works,  vi.  373),  but  this  (Cornwallis,    Correspondence,    i. 

was    in    order    to    dislodge    an  67,  71),  but  these  appear  to  have 

English  army,  and  he  was  never  been  loyalists, 
guilty  of  such   depredations  as  *  Washington's  Works,  vi.  16, 

those  perpetrated  by  the  English  47. 


CH.  xii j.  THE   FRENCH   ALLIANCE.  371 

The  subsequent  departure  of  the  French  squadron 
for  the  West  Indies  was  deemed  a  proof  that  France 
was  only  regarding  her  own  interests  in  the  contest. 
A  plan  of  again  invading  Canada  with  a  combined 
force  of  French  and  Americans  was  propounded  by 
Lafayette  in  1778,  and  was  warmly  espoused  by  many 
members  of  Congress,  but  Washington,  in  a  most  re- 
markable secret  letter,  warned  them  of  its  extreme 
political  danger.  The  French,  he  said,  had  no  doubt 
bound  themselves  by  the  treaty  of  alliance  not  to  re- 
gain any  of  the  territory  in  America  which  they  had 
abandoned  at  the  Peace  of  Paris,  but  if  a  large  body 
of  French  troops  found  themselves  in  possession  of  the 
capital  of  the  province  which  had  so  lately  belonged 
to  France,  and  which  was  bound  to  France  by  the  ties 
of  religion  and  race  and  old  associations,  was  it  likely 
that  they  would  relinquish  it?  By  keeping  Canada 
France  would  gain  a  vast  commerce,  absolute  command 
of  the  Newfoundland  fishery,  the  finest  nursery  of  sea- 
men in  the  world,  complete  security  for  her  own  islands, 
and  what,  perhaps,  she  would  value  not  less,  a  perma- 
nent control  over  the  United  States.  If,  as  seemed 
probable,  France  and  Spain  would  soon  combine  to 
destroy  the  naval  power  of  England,  they  would  be 
without  a  rival  on  the  sea,  and  France  could  always 
pour  troops  into  Canada,  which  would  make  all  resist- 
ance by  the  Americans  hopeless.  In  such  case,  America 
might  again  seek  to  be  united  with  England,  but  she 
would  find  that  England,  if  she  had  the  disposition, 
would  not  have  the  power  to  help  her.  Nor  was  it 
difficult  for  the  French  to  find  a  pretext  for  holding 
Canada,  for  they  might  treat  it  as  a  pledge  or  surety 
for  the  large  sums  for  which  America  was  already  in- 
debted to  France.1 


Washington's  Works,  pp.  106-110. 


372    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  xm. 

These  arguments  had  probably  a  considerable  weight 
with  Congress,  and  the  projected  invasion  was  aban- 
doned. The  secret  instructions,  however,  furnished  by 
the  French  Government  to  Gerard,  their  minister  in 
America,  have  of  late  years  been  laid  before  the  public, 
and  they  show  that  France  not  only  had  no  intention 
of  taking  possession  of  Canada,  but  also  that  she  was 
determined  as  far  as  possible  to  discourage  all  attempts 
of  the  Americans  to  invade  it.  The  possession  of  Canada 
and  Nova  Scotia  by  the  English,  and,  if  it  could  be 
attained,  the  possession  of  the  whole  or  part  of  Florida 
by  the  Spaniards,  would,  in  the  opinion  of  the  French 
ministers,  be  eminently  favourable  to  French  interests, 
for  it  would  keep  the  American  States  in  a  condition  of 
permanent  debility  and  anxiety,  and  would,  therefore, 
.make  them  value  more  highly  the  friendship  and  al- 
liance of  France.  So  important  did  this  consideration 
appear  to  Vergennes,  that  he  assured  the  French  am- 
bassador at  Madrid  of  his  perfect  readiness  to  guarantee 
to  England  her  dominion  over  Canada  and  Nova  Scotia.1 

The  folly  of  continuing  the  war  after  the  French 
alliance  had  been  declared,  was  keenly  felt  not  only  by 
the  English  Opposition  and  by  continental  Europe,  but 
even  by  Lord  North  himself;  but  the  determination  of 
the  King,  and  the  pride  that  would  relinquish  no  part  of 
the  British  Empire,  still  prevailed,  and  sanguine  hopes 

1  *  Les    deputes    du    Congres  cipe  utile  d'inquietude  et  de  vigi- 

avaient  propos6  au  roi  de  preiidre  lance  pour  les  Americains,  qui 

1'engagement  de  favoriserla  con-  leur  fera  sentir  davantage  tout  ie 

quete  que  les  Americains  entre-  besoin  qu'ils  ont  de  1'alliance  et 

prendraient    du    Canada,  de  la  de  Pamitie  du  roi ;  il  n'est  pas 

Nouvelle-Ecosse  et  des  Morides,  de  son    interei  de  le  detruire.' 

et  il  y  a  lieu  de   croire  que  le  See  the  instructions  to   Gerard 

projet  tient  fort  a  coeur  au  Con-  in  Circourt's  translation  of  Ban- 

gres.    Mais  le  roi   a  consider^  croft,  De  faction  commune  de  la 

que  la  possession  de  ces  trois  France  et  de  VAmerigue,  iii.  259. 

contrees,  ou  au  moins  du  Canada,  See,  too,  pp.  307,  311,  312. 
par  1'Angleterre,  serait  un  prin- 


en.  xiii.          DEKANGEMENT   OF   THE   CURRENCY.  373 

were  entertained  that  American  resistance  might  even 
now  speedily  collapse.1  Nor  were  those  hopes  without 
some  real  foundation.  In  May  1778  Washington  him- 
self expressed  his  fear  that  '  a  blow  at  our  main  army, 
if  successful,  would  have  a  wonderful  effect  upon  the 
minds  of  a  number  of  people  still  wishing  to  embrace 
the  present  terms,  or  indeed  any  terms,  offered  by  Great 
Britain.'  2  Recruits,  which  were  always  obtained  with 
great  difficulty  and  in  insufficient  numbers,  became  still 
more  rare  as  soon  as  there  was  a  prospect  of  foreign 
assistance,  and  the  depreciation  of  the  continental  cur- 
rency continued  with  an  accelerated  speed/  Nothing  in 
the  American  Revolution  is  more  curious  than  the  obsti- 
nacy with  which  the  several  States,  to  the  end  of  1778, 
refused  the  urgent  and  repeated  entreaties  of  Congress 
to  impose  some  serious  taxation  in  order  to  meet  the 
enormou  s  expenses  of  the  war.3  Whether  it  was  timidity, 
or  indifference,  or  parsimony  may  be  difficult  to  say,  but 
Congress  everywhere  met  with  a  refusal,  and  the  conse- 
quent derangement  of  the  currency  steadily  grew,  and 
in  reality  imposed  far  more  serious  loss  than  the  heaviest 


1  A  certain  Captain  Blankett,  of  it  for  the  support  of  America 

from  the  Victory  (May  31,  1778),  in  one  coffee-house  in  Paris  than 

forwarded  to  Shelburne  an  ab-  is  to  be  found  in  the  whole  con- 

stract  of  an  intercepted  letter  of  tinent.  The  Americans  are  averse 

a  French  engineer  giving  his  im-  to  war  from  a  habit  of  indolence 

pressions  of  the  state  of  things  at  and  equality.     Their  antipathy 

this  time  prevailing  in  America.  to  the  French  is  very  great.' — 

He  thought  that  the  Americans  Lansdowne  Papers,  British  Mu~ 

owed  their  success  much  more  to  seum,  Add.  MSS.  24131,  p.  29. 

English  blunders  than  to  them-  There  is  an  admirably  impartial 

selves,  and  that  if  Howe  had  fol-  and  powerful  summary  of  the 

lowed  up  his  victory  at  Brandy-  arguments  of  the  ministers  to 

wine,  the  whole  American  army  show  that  America  must  soon 

would  have  been  dispersed.  'Each  collapse,  in  the  Annual  Register, 

State,'  he  writes, '  is  jealous  of  the  1779,  p.  106. 
other.    The  spirit  of  enthusiasm          2  Washington's  Works,  v.  350. 
in  defence  of  liberty  does  not  ex-          8  See  Bolles's  Financial  His* 

ist  among  them ;  there  is  more  tory,  pp.  193-198, 


374   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xm. 

taxation.  But  for  the  large  sums  of  money  which  France 
annually  sent,  the  struggle  could  hardly  have  continued, 
and  already  to  those  brave  men  who  still  continued  to 
serve  their  country  in  the  field  without  entering  into 
questionable  speculations,  life  was  fast  becoming  almost 
impossible.  Washington  wrote  in  October  1778  that 
the  most  puny  horses  for  military  purposes  cost  at  least 
200Z.,  a  saddle  30Z.  or  40Z. ;  boots  201 ;  flour  sold  at 
different  places  from  5L  to  15L  per  hundredweight ; 
hay  from  101.  to  30Z.  per  ton,  and  other  essentials  in 
the  same  proportion.1  Six  months  later  Mrs.  Adams 
wrote  to  her  husband  that  all  butchers'  meat  was  from 
a  dollar  to  eight  shillings  per  Ib. ;  corn  25  dollars  a 
bushel;  butter  and  sugar  both  12s.  a  Ib. ;  a  common 
cow  from  601.  to  701.;  labour  six  or  eight  dollars  a  day.2 
*  Unless  extortion,  forestalling,  and  other  practices  which 
have  crept  in  and  become  exceedingly  prevalent  and 
injurious  to  the  common  cause,  can  meet  with  proper 
checks,'  wrote  Washington,  *  we  must  inevitably  sink 
under  such  a  load  of  accumulated  oppression.'3  The 
evil  was  a  growing  one,  and  in  the  last  month  of  1778, 
when  the  French  alliance  and  the  immediate  prospect 
of  a  Spanish  alliance  appeared  to  make  the  triumph 
of  America  a  certainty,  Washington  was  writing  in  a 
tone  of  extreme  despondency :  *  Our  affairs  are  in  a 
more  distressed,  ruinous,  and  deplorable  condition  than 
they  have  been  since  the  commencement  of  the  war  ; ' 
'  the  common  interests  of  America  are  mouldering  and 
sinking  into  irretrievable  ruin  if  a  remedy  is  not  soon 
applied.'4 

1  Washington's  Works,  vi.  80.      Americans  here  is  the  most  ex- 

2  Adams's   Familiar  Letters,      travagant.    All  the  infernal  arts 
p.  361.  of    stockjobbing,   all   the    vora- 

•  Washington's  Works,  vi.  91.  cious  avarice  of  merchants  have 

4  Ibid.  p.  151.     The  evil  was  mingled  themselves  with  Ameri- 

not  confined  to  the  Americans  can    politics   here.'  —  Familiaf 

at  home.    Adams  writing   from  Letters,  p.  356. 

Pa  sey  says :  '  The  delirium  among 


CH.  x:ii.  ESTIMATE   OF   THE   REVOLUTION.  375 

A  feeling  very  much  of  the  same  kind  was  begin- 
ning to  press  upon  the  mind  of  the  French  Minister,  who 
was  now  the  main  support  of  the  American  cause.  Two 
confidential  letters  written  by  Vergennes  to  the  French 
ambassador  at  Madrid,  in  November  1778,  are  very 
curious,  as  showing  that  the  closer  view  which  the  al- 
liance had  given  him  of  the  character,  dispositions,  and 
circumstances  of  the  American  people  had  profoundly 
disappointed  him.  With  a  little  more  energy  England, 
he  was  convinced,  might  have  totally  suppressed  the 
revolt,  and  even  now,  and  in  spite  of  the  active  inter- 
vention of  France,  he  had  great  fears  lest  the  whole 
edifice  of  American  Independence  should  crumble  into 
dust.1 

In  truth  the  American  people,  though  in  general  un- 
bounded believers  in  progress,  are  accustomed,  through 
a  kind  of  curious  modesty,  to  do  themselves  a  great  in- 
justice by  the  extravagant  manner  in  which  they  idealise 
their  past.  It  has  almost  become  a  commonplace  that 
the  great  nation  which  in  our  own  day  has  shown  such 
an  admirable  combination  of  courage,  devotion,  and 
humanity  in  its  gigantic  civil  war,  and  which  since  that 
time  has  so  signally  falsified  the  predictions  of  its  ene- 
mies, and  put  to  shame  all  the  nations  of  Europe  by  its 

1  'C'estgratuitementqu'onvoit  republique,  s'ils  n'en  corrigent 

dans  le  peuple  nouveau  une  race  pas  les  vices,  ce  qui  me  parait 

de  conquerants.  .  .  .  Malgre  le  tres  difficile  .  .  .  ne  sera  jamaia 

grand  attachement  qne  le  peuple  qu'un  corps  faible  et  susceptible 

et.  meme  les   chefs  temoignent  de  bien  peu  d'activite.     Si  les 

pour  leur  independance,  je  sou-  Anglais  en  avaient  mis  davan- 

haite  que  leur  Constance  ne  les  tage,  ce  colosse  apparent  serait 

abandonne  pas   avant  qu'ils  en  actuellement  plus  sournis  qu'il 

aient  obtenu  la  reconnaissance.  ne  1'avait  jamais  ete.    Dieu  f asse 

Je  commence  a  n'avoir  plus  une  que  cela  n'arrive  pas  encore.    Je 

si  grande  opinion  de  leur  fermete,  vous  avoue  que  je  n'ai  qu'une 

parce    que    celle  que  j'avais  de  faible  confiance   dans    1'energie 

leurs  talents,  de  leurs  vues  et  de  des    Etats-Unis.' — Circourt,  iii. 

leur  amour  patriotique  s'affaiblit  312-314. 
&  mesure  que  je  m'eclaire.'  '  Leur 

26 


376        ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY.     CH.  xiti. 

unparalleled  efforts  in  paying  off  its  national  debt,  is  of 
a  far  lower  moral  type  than  its  ancestors  at  the  time  of 
the  War  of  Independence.  This  belief  appears  to  me 
essentially  false.  The  nobility  and  beauty  of  the  cha- 
racter of  Washington  can  indeed  hardly  be  surpassed ; 
several  of  the  other  leaders  of  the  Revolution  were  men 
of  ability  and  public  spirit,  and  few  armies  have  ever 
shown  a  nobler  self-devotion  than  that  which  remained 
with  Washington  through  the  dreary  winter  at  Valley 
Forge.  But  the  army  that  bore  those  sufferings  was  a 
very  small  one,  and  the  general  aspect  of  the  American 
people  during  the  contest  was  far  from  heroic  or  sub- 
lime.1 The  future  destinies  and  greatness  of  the  Eng- 
lish race  must  necessarily  rest  mainly  with  the  mighty 
nation  which  has  arisen  beyond  the  Atlantic,  and  that 
nation  may  well  afford  to  admit  that  its  attitude  during 
the  brief  period  of  its  enmity  to  England  has  been  very 

1  The  following  very  emphatic  is  the  want  of  everything,  are 

passage  is  from  a  letter  of  "Wash-  but  secondary  considerations  and 

ington  from  Philadelphia,  Dec.  postponed  from  day  to  day,  from 

30,  1778 :  '  If  I  were  called  upon  week  to  week,  as  if  our  affairs 

to  draw  a  picture  of  the  times  wore  the  most  promising  aspect. 

and  of  men  from  what  I  have  .  .  .  Our  money  is  now  sinking 

seen,  heard,  and  in  part  know,  I  50  per  cent,  a  day  in  this  city, 

should  in  one  word  say  that  idle-  and  I  shall  not  be  surprised  if  in 

ness,   dissipation,   and  extrava-  the   course  of  a  few  months  a 

gance  seem  to  have  laid  fast  hold  total  stop  is  put  to  the  currency 

of  most  of  them ;  that  specula-  of   it ;   and  yet  an  assembly,  a 

tion,  peculation,  and  an  insatiable  concert,  a  dinner,  or  supper,  will 

thirst  for  riches  seem  to  have  got  not  only  take  men  off  from  acting 

the  better   of   every  other   con-  in  this  business,  but  even  from 

sideration  and  almost   of  every  thinking  of  it ;  while  a  great  part 

order  of  men ;    that  party  dis-  of  the  officers  of  our  army  from 

putes  and  personal  quarrels  are  absolute  necessity  are   quitting 

the  great  business  of  the  day;  the  service,  and  the  more  vir- 

whilst  the  momentous  concerns  tuous  few,  rather  than  do  this, 

of  an  empire,  a  great  and  accu-  are  sinking  by  sure  degrees  into 

mulating  debt,  ruined  finances,  beggary    and  want.' — Washing, 

depreciated  money  and  want  of  ton's  Works,  vi.  151,  152. 
credit,  which  in  its  consequencer 


en.  xin.  ESTIMATE    OF    THE   REVOLUTION.  377 

unduly  extolled.  At  the  same  time,  the  historian  of 
that  period  would  do  the  Americans  a  great  injustice 
if  he  judged  them  only  by  the  revolutionary  party, 
and  failed  to  recognise  how  large  a  proportion  of  their 
best  men  had  no  sympathy  with  the  movement. 


378         ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTUEY.    CH.  xiv. 


CHAPTEE  III.1 

THE   PEOGEESS   OF   THE   CONFLICT 

WITH  thirteen  colonies  in  revolt,  with  France  and 
Spain  leagued  against  her,  with  Holland  already  show- 
ing signs  of  hostility,  and  without  a  single  ally  in  the 
world,  the  position  of  England  seemed  nearly  desper- 
ate. But,  although  she  had  for  a  time  lost  the  empire 
of  the  sea,  and  was  outnumbered  and  overpowered 
even  in  her  own  Channel,  yet  the  admirable  seaman- 
ship of  her  sailors  was  still  cons  pic  nous.  Great  num- 
bers of  valuable  French  and  Spanish  merchantmen 
were  in  different  parts  of  the  globe  captured  by  Eng- 
lish cruisers,  while  the  English  traders,  for  the  most 
part,  escaped.  Just  before  the  combined  fleets  en- 
tered the  Channel,  a  fleet  of  merchantmen  from  the 
West  Indies,  consisting  of  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  sail,  and  valued  at  no  less  than  four  millions,  ar- 
rived in  safety  ;  and  almost  immediately  after  the 
hostile  fleet  had  left  the  English  coast,  another  fleet 
from  the  East  Indies  was  equally  successful.2 

A  far  more  enterprising  seaman  than  those  who 
guided  the  French  and  Spanish  fleets  was,  however, 
at  this  time  hovering  around  the  British  coasts.  Paul 
Jones,  the  most  daring  and  successful  of  the  American 
corsairs,  was  by  birth  a  Scotchman.  He  had  been  on 
sea  since  his  twelfth  year,  had  been  for  some  time 
engaged  in  the  slave  trade,  and  had  settled  down  in 
Virginia  in  1773.  He  was  the  first  man  to  raise  the 
flag  of  independence  on  the  Delaware,  and  in  1777  he 
had  a  roving  commission  in  a  ship  called  the  '  Ranger.' 

1  Chapter    XIV.    Lecky's   His-  2  Stedman,     ii.     163.       Corre- 

tory  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  spondcnce  of  George  III.  with 
Century.  l^ord  North,  ii.  275. 


CH.  xiv.  PAUL   JONES.  379 

In  1778  he  made  a  descent  upon  the  town  of  White- 
haven,  set  fire  to  the  shipping,  took  two  forts,  spiked 
thirty  pieces  of  cannon,  and  plundered  the  house  of 
Lord  Selkirk,  near  Kirkcudbright.  In  1779  he  was 
placed  at  the  head  of  a  small  squadron  which  had  been 
fitted  up  at  Port  L' Orient,  and  which  consisted  of  three 
ships  carrying  respectively  40,  36,  and  32  guns,  with 
two  smaller  vessels.  In  the  beginning  of  August  he 
was  hanging  around  the  coast  of  Kerry,  and  making 
frequent  descents,1  and  in  the  following  month  he 
appeared  near  the  mouth  of  the  Humber.  Soon  after, 
he  succeeded  in  intercepting  a  large  fleet  of  merchant- 
men from  the  Baltic,  which  was  convoyed  by  the 
4  Serapis,'  a  ship  of  44  guns,  under  Captain  Pierson, 
and  the  i  Countess  of  Scarborough,'  commanded  by 
Captain  Piercy,  a  ship  of  20  guns.  A  desperate  fight 
ensued,  which  lasted  for  between  two  and  three  hours. 
For  some  time  the  hostile  ships  lay  so  close  together 
that  the  muzzles  of  their  guns  touched.  The  ships  011 
both  sides  were  almost  torn  to  pieces,  and  much  more 
than  half  of  their  crews  killed  or  wounded.  At  length, 
the  English  ships  of  war,  being  almost  sinking,  were 
obliged  to  surrender,  but  the  merchant  fleet  they  had 
convoyed  escaped  safely  to  shore.2  * 

In  America,  and  especially  in  the  Northern  prov- 
inces, the  war  was  very  languid.  On  the  side  of  the 
Americans  financial  ruin  was  rapidly  advancing.  In 
this  single  year  more  than  140  millions  of  paper  dol- 
lars were  thrown  into  circulation.3  The  depreciation 
was  soon  at  least  20  to  1,  and  voices  were  already 
heard  proposing  to  correct  the  evil  with  the  sponge.4 

1  This  is  mentioned  in  a  letter  4  Washington's  Works,  vi.  331, 
from    Lord    Buckingham. — J//Sy.  332.      Washington    himself    ex- 
Record  Office.                                      •  perienced    in   this   year  the*  dis- 

2  See  the  Life  of  Paul  Jones,  honesty  of  debtors  paying  off  old 
by   J.    II.   Sherburiie.     Stedrnau,  debts    in    paper. — Washington's 
ii.  163-165.  Works,  vi.  321,  322. 

3  Bolles,  88. 


380 


ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUKY.  CE.  xiv. 


The  old  difficulty  of  procuring  recruits  was  now  greatly 
aggravated,  and  late  in  the  spring  of  1779  the  whole 
continental  army,  exclusive  of  a  few  troops  in  the 
Southern  provinces,  amounted  to  only  16,000  men.1 
Officers  found  it  impossible  to  live  on  their  pay.  An 
additional  bounty  of  200  dollars  was  offered  by  Con- 
gress to  all  who  would  serve  in  the  continental  army 
for  the  whole  duration  of  the  war ;  but  it  was  paid  in 
depreciated  paper,  and  it  was  far  exceeded  by  the 
bounties  offered  by  the  separate  States,  often  for  short 
periods  of  service.  The  interest  of  the  war  had  in  a 
great  measure  gone  down  since  the  European  alliances, 
and  in  this,  as  in  former  periods,  the  letters  of  Wash- 
ington are  full  of  those  complaints  of  popular  indiffer- 
ence and  selfishness  which  make  the  history  of  the  Amer- 
ican Revolution  so  monotonous  and  so  depressing.2 


1  Hildreth,  iii.  274.  Wash- 
ington's Works,  vi.  196,  198. 
Virginia  offered  a  bounty  of  no 
less  than  750  dollars,  besides 
some  land,  to  any  soldier  who 
would  enlist  for  the  war.  In  a 
letter  on  July  29,  Washington 
says:  'Excepting  about  400  re- 
cruits from  the  State *^>f  Massa- 
chusetts Bay  (a  portion  of  whom, 
I  am  told,  are  children  hired  at 
about  1,500  dollars  each  for  nine 
months'  service),  I  have  had  no 
reinforcement  to  this  army  since 
last  campaign.' — Ibid.  p.  312.  In 
November  1779,  he  says:  'Our 
whole  force,  including  all  sorts  of 
troops  .  .  .  supposing  every  man 
to  have  existed  and  to  have  been 
in  service  at  that  time  [in  Octo- 
ber]— a  point,  however,  totally 
inadmissible — amounted  to  27,- 
098.'— Ibid.  p.  402. 

3  Thus  on  May  8,  1779,  he 
writes :  '  The  rapid  decay  of  our 
currency,  the  extinction  of  public 


spirit,  the  increasing  rapacity  of 
the  times,  the  want  of  harmony 
in  our  councils,  the  declining  zeal 
of  the  people,  the  discontents  and 
distresses  of  the  officers  of  the 
army,  and  I  may  add  the  prevail- 
ing security  and  insensibility  to 
danger,  are  symptoms  in  my  eye 
of  a  most  alarming  nature.  If 
the  enemy  have  it  in  their  power 
to  press  us  hard  this  campaign, 
I  know  not  what  may  be  the 
consequence.  Our  army,  as  it 
now  stands,  is  but  little  more 
than  the  skeleton  of  an  army.  I 
hear  of  no  steps  that  are  taking 
to  give  it  strength  and  substance.' 
—Ibid.  p.  251.  In  a  letter  writ- 
ten ten  days  later  to  a  friend  he 
says:  'I  have  no  scruple  in  de- 
claring to  you  that  I  have  never 
yet  seen  the  time  in  which  our 
affairs  in  my  opinion  were  at  so 
low  an  ebb  as  at  the  present.' — 
Ibid.  p.  252. 


CH.  xiv.  DESTRUCTION    OF   AMERICAN    TOWNS.  381 

The  English  were  for  the  most  part  concentrated  at 
New  York,  and  they  had  begun  to  fortify  its  approaches. 
The  population  of  that  town  appear  to  have  been  in 
general  thoroughly  loyal,  and,  letters  of  marque  having 
been  issued,  more  than  150  prizes  were  in  less  than  six 
months  brought  by  loyalist  privateers  into  New  York 
harbour.1  The  garrison  in  Rhode  Island  was  in  the 
course  of  this  year  withdrawn,  and  the  few  inconsider- 
able isolated  expeditions  which  were  made  with  various 
success  in  the  Northern  provinces  need  not  be  related 
in  detail.  Two  expeditions,  however,  must  be  specially 
noticed,  for  they  proved  that  the  threats  of  the  Commis- 
sioners that  the  war  would  be  carried  on  by  the  English 
in  a  harsher  spirit  were  by  no  means  idle.  Governor 
Try  on  strongly  represented  to  the  English  Government 
that '  vigorous  and  hostile  depredations '  by  small  de- 
tachments sent  from  the  army  at  New  York  would  soon 
make  America 4  call  aloud  for  the  settlement  offered  by 
the  King's  Commissioners,' 2  and  in  May  1779  an  expe- 
dition, commanded  by  Sir  George  Collier  and  General 
Matthew,  made  a  descent  upon  Virginia,  burned  or 
captured  more  than  130  vessels,  destroyed  nearly  all 
the  magazines,  storehouses,  and  dockyards,  over  a  large 
area,  burnt  every  house  in  the  little  town  of  Suffolk  ex- 
cept a  church  and  one  private  dwelling-house,  reduced 
many  country-houses  to  ruin,  and  carried  off  or  de- 
stroyed great  quantities  of  tobacco  and  of  provisions. 
About  six  weeks  later  a  second  expedition,  in  which 
2,600  land  troops  were  employed,  under  the  personal 
command  of  Governor  Try  on,  descended  upon  Connec- 
ticut. The  little  town  of  New  Haven  was  given  up  to 
almost  indiscriminate  plunder.  Fan-field,  East  Haven, 
and  the  nourishing  town  of  Norwalk,  were  set  fire  to 
and  wholly  or  partially  destroyed,  and  an  immense 


1  Documents    relating     to     the       viii.  754,  757,  759. 
Colonial  History   of  New   York,  8  Ibid.  750. 


382         ENGLAND   IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY.    CH.  xiv. 

amount  of  property  of  many  kinds  was  plundered  or 
burned.  The  conduct  of  the  British  was  only  slightly 
palliated  by  the  allegation  that  the  dockyards  which 
were  ruined  had  been  largely  employed  in  fitting  out 
privateers  against  the  English  navy,  and  that  the  little 
towns  which  were  burnt  had  fired  upon  English  troops. 
Yast  numbers  of  peaceable  and  inoffensive  persons  who 
did  not  make  the  shadow  of  resista-nce  were  ruined  and 
outraged,  and  the  expeditions  of  the  English  were  pro- 
bably much  more  efficacious  in  arousing  indignation  and 
in  alienating  loyalists  than  in  intimidating  the  enemy.1 
It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  Baron  Kalb,  who  had  served 
through  the  whole  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  and  who 
was  therefore  not  likely  to  feel  any  exaggerated  sen- 
sitiveness about  abuses  of  the  rights  of  war,  condemned 
in  the  most  emphatic  manner  these  proceedings  of 
the  English.2 

An  American  expedition  under  General  Sullivan 
was,  in  the  summer  of  1779,  directed  with  terrible 
effect  against  the  Six  nations — the  Indian  tribes  who 
inhabited  the  vast  and  fertile  country  between  New 
England,  the  Middle  States,  and  Canada.  They  had, 
with  few  exceptions,  been  steadily  on  the  side  of 
England,  and  they  had  committed  some  ravages  and 
some  very  horrible  murders.  The  Americans  now, 
with  scarcely  any  loss,  reduced  their  whole  country  to 
a  desert.  The  Indians  had  of  late  years  made  consid- 
erable steps  in  the  path  of  prosperity  and  civilisation, 
and  the  invaders  were  surprised  to  find  little  towns  of 
large  and  commodious  houses,  well -cultivated  corn- 
fields and  gardens,  extensive  orchards,  and  all  the  signs 
of  a  happy  and  flourishing  people.  In  a  few  days 


1  Ramsay.  Stedman,  ii.   136-  a  Sec   the   passages    quoted  in 

139,142-144.  Washington's  Let-  Greene's  German  Element  in  the 

ters,    vi.  292,  293.      See,  too,  p.  American   War  of  Independence, 

208.  pp.  151,  152. 


1779.  383 

little  remained  but  charred  and  blackened  ruins. 
Orchards  which  had  been  planted  many  years  before, 
were  deliberately  cut  down.  The  crops  now  rapidly 
approaching  harvest  were  burnt  to  the  stalk.  Every 
human  habitation  was  destroyed,  and  the  whole  people 
were  driven  in  headlong  flight  to  Niagara,  more  than 
one  hundred  miles  from  their  former  homes.  A  simi- 
lar war,  carried  on  with  similar  ferocity  by  Colonel 
Brodhead,  devastated  the  Indian  country  on  the 
Alleghany,  French  Creek,  and  other  waters  of  the 
Ohio  above  Fort  Pitt,  and  famine,  fire,  and  the  sword 
almost  extirpated,  over  great  districts,  the  last  descend- 
ants of  the  ancient  rulers  of  the  land.1 

The  most  important  English  expeditions  of  this 
year  were  in  the  Southern  provinces.  The  brilliant 
successes  of  last  year  in  Georgia,  and  the  revelation  of 
the  loyalist  feelings  of  its  people,  encouraged  the  Eng- 
lish to  make  the  conquest  of  the  Southern  colonies,  and 
especially  of  the  Carolinas,  a  main  object  of  their  pol- 
icy, and  the  extreme  alarm  of  Washington  2  is  a  strong 
indication  that  the  policy  was  a  wise  one.  In  the  Caro- 
linas there  were  large  numbers  of  Germans,  Dutch, 
and  Quakers  who  took  but  little  interest  in  the  war, 
and  the  remaining  population  was  very  heterogeneous 
and  divided.  The  reins  of  power  in  this,  as  in  other 
provinces,  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  revolution- 
ary classes ;  but  England  had  many  friends  among 
the  rich  and  in  the  trading  classes,  and  there  was 
a  large  Scotch  settlement  which  was  enthusiastically 
loyal. 

The  Irish  Presbyterians,  on  the  other  hand,  appear 
to  have  been  everywhere  bitterly  anti-English,  and 
outside  New  England  it  is  probable  that  they  did  more 
of  the  real  fighting  of  the  Revolution  than  any  other 


1  Ramsay,  li.  145,  148.     Wash-       384. 
ington's  Works,  vi.  349,  350,  350,  2  Ibid.  p.  248. 


384:    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 

class.  The  backwoodsmen  also,  who  looked  upon  the 
English  as  protectors  or  allies  of  the  Indians,  were 
vehement  Whigs.  The  war  in  the  Southern  colonies 
had  always  the  aspect  of  a  civil  war,  and  it  was  pecu- 
liarly ferocious.  In  the  spring  of  1779,  a  party  of 
loyalists  having  been  defeated  by  the  Americans  in 
South  Carolina,  the  prisoners  were  tried  according  to 
the  "New  State  law,  which  made  their  offence  treason  ; 
seventy  were  condemned  to  death  and  five  were  actually 
executed.  A  loyalist  captain  who  had  been  himself 
tarred  and  feathered  and  otherwise  insulted  retaliated 
by  hanging  Whig  prisoners.1  In  April  the  English 
forces  at  Savannah,  having  obtained  considerable  rein- 
forcements, took  the  field.  They  soon  overran  a  great 
part  of  South  Carolina,  gained  several  successes  over 
the  militia  that  were  opposed  to  them,  arrived  before  the 
lines  of  Charleston,  and  appeared  so  formidable  that  the 
Americans  proposed  the  neutrality  of  the  State  till  the 
conclusion  of  the  peace  determined  to  whom  it  should 
belong.  The  British  rejected  the  offer ;  but  they  were 
as  yet  too  weak  to  attack  Charleston,  and  they  retired 
with  much  booty  into  Georgia.  In  September  Count 
d'Estaing,  with  a  French  fleet  of  twenty  sail  of  the  line 
and  eleven  frigates,  appeared  unexpectedly  off  the  coast 
of  Georgia,  and  Savannah  was  besieged  by  a  very 
powerful  force,  comprising  more  than  3,500  French 
soldiers,  with  many  cannon,  as  well  as  a  large  number 
of  Americans.  The  defence  was  brave,  skilful,  and 
completely  successful.  After  a  siege  of  rather  more 
than  three  weeks,  and  after  a  general  assault  in  which 
the  French  were  driven  back  with  a  loss  of  more  than 
1,000  men,  and  in  which  the  gallant  Pulaski  fell  mor- 
tally wounded,  the  siege  was  abandoned,  and  the 
French,  having  re-embarked  their  troops  and  artillery, 
sailed  for  the  West  Indies.  In  the  garrison  which  so 

1  Ramsay,  ii.  114.     Hildrcth,  iii.  277,  278. 


en.  xiv.  SIEGE   OF   CHARLESTON,    1780.  385 

nobly  defended  Savannah  there  were  at  least  1,000 
American  loyalists.  Clinton  resolved  to  make  the  re- 
duction of  the  southern  colonies  the  main  task  of  the 
forthcoming  year,  and  a  few  days  before  the  close  of 
1779  he  embarked  himself  for  the  Southern  expedition 
with  7,000  men,  2,000  of  whom  were  American  loyal- 
ists. General  Kniphausen,  with  a  strong  garrison  of 
English,  German,  and  American  loyalist  troops,  was 
left  at  New  York.1 

In  the  year  1780,  the  Southern  campaign  in  America 
was  vigorously  pushed  on.  General  Clinton  only  landed 
with  his  forces  from  New  York  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Charleston  on  March  29,  after  a  stormy^and  disastrous 
voyage,  which  must  have  brought  vividly  before  many 
minds  the  enormous  natural  difficulties  of  subduing 
a  country  that  it  took  so  much  time  even  to  traverse. 
The  Americans  had  ample  notice  of  the  intention  of  the 
English  to  attack  Charleston ;  they  had  carefully  forti- 
fied the  great  Southern  capital,  and  they  summoned, 
under  penalty  of  confiscation,  all  the  militia  of  the 
province  and  all  the  male  inhabitants  to  the  defence. 
It  is,  however,  a  remarkable  sign  of  the  languor  or 
disaffection  of  the  Southern  provinces  that,  although 
Washington  had  detached  from  his  own  army  North 
Carolina  and  Virginian  troops  for  the  defence  of 
Charleston,2  it  was  only  possible  to  collect  somewhat  less 
than  3,000  men,  exclusive  of  the  town  population,  but 
including  the  militia  of  the  province.3  The  defence  was 


1  Hildreth,  iii.  295.     Stedman,  the   English  historian,   who   was 
ii.  124-132.  present    in    the    war    in     South 

2  Washington's       Works,     vi.  Carolina     (ii.     229),     says     that 
487.  '  General   Lincoln    at   Charleston 

3  Ramsay,  ii.  155.     There  were  had   7,000   men   of   all    denomi- 
probably  about  3,000  other  adult  nations    under    arms '    (ii.    179). 
males    in    the    town,    and    they  Hildreth  says  the  forces  of  Lin- 
helped   in   the  defence   (p.   156).  coin    were    'upwards    of     7,000 
See,     too,    Bancroft.       Stedman,  men,    including    2,300    continen- 


386    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  CM.  xiv. 

entrusted  to  General  Lincoln,  and  it  did  great  honour 
to  the  skill,  courage,  and  tenacity  of  the  garrison. 
Charleston  was  the  first  town  the  Americans  had 
attempted  to  defend,  and  it  was  besieged  by  a  force, 
drawn  from  various  quarters,  which  amounted  to  not  less 
than  9,000  men.  At  last,  on  May  12,  it  was  obliged 
to  capitulate.  More  than  5,000  men,  including  the 
garrison  and  all  adult  males,  surrendered  as  prisoners 
of  war.  Eight  small  ships  of  war,  which  lay  in  the 
harbour,  were  taken  or  sunk,  and  400  cannon  as  well 
as  large  magazines  were  captured.  The  English  during 
the  whole  siege  lost  little  more  than  250  men.1  In  the 
beginning  of  June,  Clinton  returned  with  a  large  part 
of  his  troops  to  New  York>  leaving  a  detachment  of 
4,000  men  under  Lord  Cornwallis  to  prosecute  the  war 
in  the  South.  '  The  inhabitants  from  every  quarter/ 
wrote  Clinton  just  before  leaving  South  Carolina,  *  de- 
clare their  allegiance  to  the  King  and  offer  their  ser- 
vices in  arms.  There  are  few  men  in  South  Carolina 
who  are  not  either  our  prisoners  or  in  arms  with  us.' 2 

'  We  look  on  America  as  at  our  feet,'  wrote  Horace 
Walpole  to  Mann,  when  the  news  of  the  reduction  of 
Charleston  arrived.3  With  Savannah  and  Charleston 
in  the  hands  of  the  English,  the  old  dominion  might 
indeed  be  regarded  as  re-established  in  a  great  portion 
of  the  Southern  colonies.  A  few  American  troops, 
who  had  appeared  in  the  northern  extremity  of  South 
Carolina,  hastily  retreated,  and  one  detachment  of  about 


tals,   1,000  North  Carolina  mi-  rendered  with  about  6,000  men, 

litia,  and  the  militia  of  the  city,  400  pieces  of  artillery,  and  large 

amounting  to  near  4,000.    All  magazines.' 

the,   aid  sent  in  from  the  sur-  l  Cornwallis   Correspondence, 

rounding  country  did  not  amount  i.  44. 

to    200    men.'— History  of  the  2  Bancroft,  x.  308. 

United  States,  iii.  306.    Accord-  8  Walpole  to  Mann,  July  24, 

ing    to  the    Cornwallis    Corre-  1780. 

tpondence  (i.  44),  '  Lincoln  sur- 


CH.  xiv.  SOUTHERN  CAMPAIGN,    1780.  387 

300  men,  being  overtaken,  was  almost  cut  to  pieces, 
very  little  quarter  being  given.  Except  in  the  line 
where  the  State  bordered  on  North  Carolina,  all  resist- 
ance had  ceased,  and  the  country  was  scarcely  less 
peaceful  than  before  the  war  had  begun,  while  loyalist 
insurrections  in  North  Carolina,  prematurely  and  im- 
prudently undertaken  and  savagely  suppressed,  showed 
how  insecure  was  the  hold  of  the  Kevolution  in  that 
province.  In  North  Carolina,  however,  and  especially 
along  the  border  between  that  province  and  South 
Carolina,  there  were  many  determined  Whigs,  and  some 
real  efforts  were  made  by  the  surrounding  provinces 
to  check  the  English.  Clinton,  before  leaving  South 
Carolina,  invited  the  inhabitants  to  enroll  themselves  in 
the  loyal  militia,  offered  free  pardon  to  all  insurgents 
who  had  not  been  concerned  in  the  execution  of 
loyalists,  promised  various  immunities  to  all  who  would 
actively  support  the  Crown,  and  guaranteed  the  State  a 
speedy  restoration  of  its  Constitution,  and  an  exemption 
from  all  taxation  except  by  its  own  Legislature.  He  at 
the  same  time  threatened  to  confiscate  the  goods  of  all 
who  again  took  arms  against  the  King,  and,  by  a  later 
and  a  very  injudicious  proclamation,  he  discharged  the 
paroles  of  all  suspected  persons  who  had  not  been 
actually  taken  in  arms,  restored  them  to  the  rights  and 
duties  of  citizens,  but  at  the  same  time  commanded 
them  to  return  to  their  allegiance  on  pain  of  being 
treated  as  rebels. 

This  proclamation,  by  making  neutrality  impossible, 
excited  a  great  and  reasonable  discontent,  which  began 
to  assume  a  graver  form  when  the  intelligence  arrived 
that  Baron  de  Kalb,  at  the  head  of  about  2,000  men 
detached  from  the  army  of  Washington,  was  marching 
rapidly  through  North  Carolina.  Kalb  was  soon  joined 
by  large  bodies  of  militia,  and  the  whole  force  waa 
placed  under  the  command  of  Gates,  the  victor  of  Sara- 


388         ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.     CH.  XIT, 

toga.  It  appears  to  have  consisted  altogether  of  about 
6,000  men,  and  on  August  16  a  very  severe  battle  was 
fought  near  Camden.  Cornwallis,  who  commanded  the 
English,  had  some  superiority  in  position,  and  a  great 
superiority  in  cavalry,  but  the  Americans  were  alto- 
gether nearly  three  times  as  numerous  as  the  English.1 
A  large  portion  of  their  militia,  however,  gave  way  at 
the  first  shock,  and  the  English  gained  one  of  the  most 
decisive  victories  of  the  whole  war.  The  Americana 
lost  all  their  cannon,  and  the  greater  part  of  their 
baggage ;  Kalb  fell  mortally  wounded ;  and  the  defeated 
army,  with  a  loss  of  many  hundreds  of  men,  was  pursued 
in  wild  confusion  for  more  than  twenty  miles  from  the 
field  of  battle.  Another  American  corps,  numbering 
about  700  men,  under  General  Sumpter,  was  in  South 
Carolina,  and  it  at  once  determined  to  retreat ;  but 
Colonel  Tarleton  succeeded,  with  a  much  smaller  force, 
and  by  a  march  of  extraordinary  rapidity,  in  intercepting 
and  surprising  it.  The  American  commander  escaped 
with  difficulty;  more  than  450  of  the  provincials  were 
either  killed  or  taken.  They  lost  all  their  cannon, 
baggage,  and  ammunition;  1,000  stand  of  arms  were 
taken,  and  the  whole  force  was  completely  scattered.  By 
these  two  victories  the  American  army  in  the  Southern 
provinces  was  annihilated  or  dispersed.2 

It  was  hoped  that  the  immediate  reduction  of  North 
Carolina  would  follow,  but  the  expectation  was  not 
realised.  Cornwallis  found  it  necessary  to  wait  some 
time  for  the  arrival  of  fresh  stores  from  Charleston, 
and  in  the  meantime  the  Americans,  whose  daring  and 
fertility  of  resource  were  never  more  conspicuously 
displayed  than  at  times  when  all  appeared  lost,  soon 
recovered  their  panic.  In  a  few  weeks  several  parties — 

1  Cornwallis   Correspondence,      in  Stedman,  Eamsay,  and  Baa- 
L  492-495.  croft. 

»  Ibid.  i.  Compare  the  accounts 


CH.  XTV.  SEVERITIES   OF  THE  ENGLISH.  389 

capable,  however,  only  of  waging  a  guerrilla  warfare — 
were  in  arms  in  North  Carolina,  while  in  South  Carolina 
disaffection  was  spreading.  Opinion  in  the  provinces 
was,  in  reality,  much  divided,  and  although  it  is  pro- 
bable that  in  South  Carolina  at  least,  tbere  were  many 
more  who  sympathised  with  England  than  with  the 
Revolution,  the  prevailing  desire  of  the  inhabitants  was 
to  remain  neutral  and  to  do  nothing  that  could  provoke 
the  resentment  of  either  of  the  contending  parties. 
This  neutrality  had  become  difficult  or  impossible. 
Cornwallis  endeavoured  to  form  his  militia  exclusively 
out  of  loyal  inhabitants,  but  there  were  many  deserters, 
and  one  whole  corps,  which  had  been  entrusted  with 
the  protection  of  some  sick  soldiers,  went  over  to  the 
enemy,  giving  up  their  officers  and  the  sick  soldiers  as 
prisoners.  Cornwallis  issued  orders  that  all  who,  having 
taken  protections  from  the  English,  had  subsequently 
joined  in  the  revolt,  should  be  punished  with  the  greatest 
rigour,  and  their  whole  property  taken  or  destroyed, 
and  that  every  militiaman  who  had  voluntarily  borne 
arms  for  the  English,  and  had  afterwards  deserted  to 
the  enemy,  should  be  hanged.1  Several  such  men  were 
executed  after  the  defeal  s  of  Gates  and  Sumpter.  Imi- 
tating the  policy  which  the  revolutionary  party  had 
steadily  pursued,  he  confiscated  for  the  public  service 
the  estates  of  all  who  had  left  the  province  to  join  the 
enemies  of  Great  Britain,  who  held  commissions  under 
the  authority  of  Congress,  or  who  were  opposing  the  re- 
establishment  of  the  royal  Government,  reserving,  how- 
ever, an  allowance  for  their  wives  and  children.  A  large 
section  of  Charleston  society  was  strongly  in  favour  of 
the  Revolution,  and,  having  discovered  that  several  of 
its  members  when  on  parole  had  been  in  correspondence 
with  the  enemy,  Cornwallis  sent  about  forty  of  them  as 


1  Cornwallis  Correspondence,  i.  56-58. 


390    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xiv. 

prisoners  to  St.  Augustine,  in  East  Florida.  After  a 
short  imprisonment  they  were  released  upon  parole,  but 
their  banishment  excited  great  resentment,  and  Charles- 
ton society  showed  itself  extremely  hostile  to  the  British. 
Ladies  refused  to  attend  public  assemblies  lest  they 
should  encounter  English  officers,  and  female  influence 
was  busily  employed  in  fomenting  revolt. 

These  things  might  not  have  been  very  serious  if  the 
projected  invasion  of  North  Carolina  had  succeeded.  In 
September  the  English  entered  that  province  in  three 
bodies,  but,  though  there  were  some  Scotch  settlements 
favourable  to  them,  the  general  spirit  of  the  people 
proved  exceedingly  hostile.  English  messengers  were 
waylaid,  English  foraging  parties  were  cut  off,  and 
straggling  soldiers  were  shot  down  by  men  concealed  in 
the  forests.  Wild  backwoodsmen  from  Kentucky  and 
other  settlements  westward  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains, 
had  been  collected,  and,  being  joined  by  companies  of 
militia  and  by  the  relics  of  the  shattered  armies  of  Gates 
and  Sumpter,  they  gradually  became  a  formidable  force. 
They  did  not  venture  to  attack  the  main  body  of  the 
English ;  but  on  October  9  they  fell  upon  the  most 
advanced  detachment,  which  was  commanded  by  Major 
Ferguson,  and  consisted  almost  exclusively  of  loyal 
militia,  and  after  a  hard  fight  they  totally  defeated  it. 
The  commander  was  killed.  Nearly  all  who  did  not 
share  his  fate  were  compelled  to  surrender,  and  ten  of 
the  most  obnoxious  loyalist  prisoners  were  hanged  upon 
the  field.  The  blow  was  so  formidable  that  on  Octo- 
ber 14  Cornwallis  ordered  a  retreat.  On  November  20 
the  third  detachment  of  the  English,  which  was  com- 
manded by  Colonel  Tarleton,  was  attacked  at'Blackstock 
Hill  by  General  Sumpter  at  the  head  of  a  very  superior 
force,  and  was  defeated,  though  without  serious  loss. 
Before  the  close  of  the  year  North  Carolina  had  been 
wholly  evacuated,  and  the  only  fruits  as  yet  attained  by 


en.  xiv.  THE   WINTER   OF   1780.  391 

the  Southern  campaign  were  the  complete  conquest  of 
Georgia  and  of  South  Carolina. 

In  the  Northern  provinces  during  many  months 
little  of  any  importance  had  happened.  Both  the 
British  army  at  New  York  and  the  army  of  Washing- 
ton at  West  Point  had  been  much  weakened  by  the 
detachments  which  they  sent  to  the  South,  and  neither 
was  strong  enough  for  a  serious  enterprise.  The  winter 
was  one  of  the  coldest  ever  known  in  America.  The 
troops  of  Washington  suffered  much  more  from  it  than 
the  English,  who  had  the  shelter  of  a  great  town  ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  water  around  New  York  was 
during  several  weeks  so  hard  frozen  that  artillery  could 
have  passed  over  it.1  The  ships  of  war  were  rendered 
useless  by  the  ice,  and  New  York,  in  losing  its  insular 
position,  lost  its  chief  advantages  for  defence.  Had 
there  been  a  French  army  in  North  America,  the  town 
would  probably  have  been  captured,  and  the  war  might 
have  been  speedily  terminated. 

The  condition  of  the  Americans,  however,  was  at 
this  time  as  wretched  as  during  any  part  of  the  contest. 
All  provisions  brought  to  New  York  were  paid  for  in 
hard  money  ;  those  which  were  brought  to  West  Point 
in  enormously  depreciated  currency.  The  devastations 
of  the  previous  year  had  destroyed  some  of  the  chief 
sources  of  supply,  and,  although  forced  requisitions  of 
food  were  systematically  made  over  a  wide  area,  the 
extreme  severity  of  the  weather  and  the  passive  resis- 
tance of  the  farmers  made  it  very  difficult  to  bring  the 
supplies  to  camp.2  The  letters  of  Washington  greatly 
resemble  those  of  the  winter  at  Valley  Forge.  c  The 
present  situation  of  the  army,'  he  wrote  on  January  8, 
1780,  '  with  respect  to  provisions  is  the  most  distressing 

1  Documents    relating  to   the          2  Washington's      Works,     vi. 
Colonial  History  of  New  York,      432,  433,  440,  482. 
viii.  781, 782. 

27 


392   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  ca.  *!7« 

of  any  we  have  experienced  since  the  beginning  of  the 
war.  For  a  fortnight  past  the  troops,  both  officers  and 
men,  have  been  almost  perishing  for  want.  They  have 
been  alternately  without  bread  or  meat  the  whole  time, 
with  a  very  scanty  allowance  of  either,  and  frequently 
destitute  of  both.' l  He  described  his  troops  as  '  men 
half  starved,  imperfectly  clothed,  riotous,  and  robbing 
the  country  people  of  their  subsistence  from  sheer 
necessity.'  2  *  There  never,'  he  wrote  about  two  months 
later,  *  has  been  a  stage  of  the  war  in  which  the  dis- 
satisfaction has  been  so  general  and  alarming.  It  has 
lately  in  particular  instances  worn  features  of  a  very 
dangerous  complexion/ 

As  the  springtime  advanced  there  was  no  im- 
provement. '  We  are  constantly  on  the  point  of 
starving,3  he  wrote  at  the  end  of  April,  '  for  want  of 
provisions  and  forage.'  A  month  later  he  wrote  to 
Reed,  the  President  of  Pennsylvania  :  '  There  is  such 
a  combination  of  circumstances  to  exhaust  the  patience 
of  the  soldiery  that  it  begins  at  length  to  be  worn 
out,  and  wo  see  in  every  line  of  the  army  the  most 
serious  features  of  mutiny  and  sedition.  All  our  de- 
partments, all  our  operations  are  at  a  stand,  and  unless 
a  system  very  different  from  that  which  has  for  a  long 
time  prevailed  be  immediately  adopted  throughout  the 
States,  our  affairs  must  soon  become  desperate  beyond 
the  possibility  of  recovery.  If  you  were  on  the  spot, 
my  dear  sir  ...  you  would  be  convinced  that  these 
expressions  are  not  too  strong,  and  that  we  have  every- 
thing to  dread.  Indeed,  I  have  almost  ceased  to  hope. 
The  country  in  general  is  in  such  a  state  of  insensibility 
and  indifference  to  its  interests  that  I  dare  not  flatter 
myself  with  any  change  for  the  better.'  3  It  is  true 
that  the  whole  English  garrison  of  New  York  and  ita 

Washington's     Works,     vi.          *  Ibid.  pp.  439,  441. 
439.  f  Ibid.  pp.  13,  25,  58. 


en.  xiv.  DESPONDENCY  OF  WASHINGTON.  393 

dependencies,  which  was  the  one  stronghold  of  the 
English  power  in  the  Northern  colonies,  consisted,  ac- 
cording to  Washington's  own  estimate,  during  a  long 
period  of  only  8,000  regular  soldiers,  about  4,000 
loyalist  refugees,  and  the  militia  raised  from  New  York 
and  its  vicinity.1  It  is  true  that  England  was  without 
an  ally  in  the  world,  and  that  America  had  two  of  the 
greatest  Powers  in  Europe  assisting  her  in  the  struggle, 
yet  still  in  the  fourth  year  of  the  war  Washington 
gravely  doubted  whether  there  was  sufficient  power, 
sufficient  patriotism,  sufficient  earnestness  in  the  States 
to  carry  it  to  a  successful  issue. 

'  The  combined  fleets  of  France  and  Spain,'  he  wrote, 
'  last  year  were  greatly  superior  to  those  of  the  enemy. 
Nevertheless,  the  enemy  sustained  no  material  damage, 
and  at  the  close  of  the  campaign  gave  a  very  important 
blow  to  our  allies.  This  campaign  the  difference  be- 
tween the  fleets  will  be  inconsiderable.  What  are  we  to 
expect  if  there  should  be  another  campaign  ?  In  all  pro- 
bability the  advantage  will  be  on  the  side  of  the  English, 
and  then  what  would  become  of  America  ?  We  ought 
not  to  deceive  ourselves.  The  maritime  resources  ot 
Great  Britain  are  more  substantial  and  real  than  those 
of  France  and  Spain  united.  .  .  .  In  modern  wars  the 
longest  purse  must  chiefly  determine  the  event.  I  fear 
that  of  the  enemy  will  be  found  to  be  so/  What  little 
unity  there  had  ever  been  between  the  States  seemed 
rapidly  breaking  up.  'I  see  one  head  gradually 
changing  into  thirteen.  I  see  one  army  branching  into 
thirteen,  which,  instead  of  looking  up  to  Congress  as 
the  supreme  controlling  power  of  the  United  States, 
are  considering  themselves  as  dependent  on  their  re- 
spective States.  In  a  word,  I  see  the  power  of  Congress 
declining  too  fast  for  consideration  and  respect.' 2 

1  Washington's  Works,  vi.  39.  «  Ibid.  vii.  59,  60,  68. 


394    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  xi7. 

It  was  necessary,  in  the  opinion  of  Washington,  that 
there  should  be  at  least  20,000  efficient  continental 
troops,  but  this  very  modest  requirement  was  more  than 
could  be  complied  with.1  Bounties  which  were  nomi- 
nally enormous,  and  which,  even  allowing  for  the  depre- 
ciation of  money,  were  very  great,  were  offered  by  some 
States,  and  the  different  conditions  under  which  the 
troops  of  the  same  army  were  enlisted  were  the  occasion 
of  endless  bitterness  and  recrimination.2  It  was,  how- 
ever, quite  impossible  to  recruit  the  American  army  by 
voluntary  means,  and  it  was  only  by  compulsory  drafting 
from  the  local  militias  that  the  small  force  could  be  kept 
together.3  For  several  months  100  deserters  on  an 
average  appeared  monthly  at  the  British  camp  at  New 
York,  and  the  number  doubled  when  the  press  for 
soldiers  for  the  continental  army  began.4  From  every 
side  signs  of  discontent  were  gathering.  The  officers  of 
the  Jersey  line  addressed  a  memorial  to  their  State 
Legislature  stating  *  that  four  months'  pay  of  a  private 
would  not  procure  for  his  family  a  single  bushel  of 
wheat;  that  the  pay  of  a  colonel  would  not  purchase 
oats  for  his  horse;  that  a  common  labourer  received 
four  times  as  much  as  an  American  officer/8  Two 
regiments  of  Connecticut  troops  broke  into  open  mutiny. 
Attempts  were  made  to  combine  both  officers  and  men 
in  a  refusal  to  accept  the  depreciated  paper  money,  and 
even  in  this  currency  the  soldiers  were  for  long  periods 


1  Washington's  Works,  vii.  51,  for  a  few  months,  they  began  to 
52.  compare  situations,  to  murmur, 

2  'The  Pennsylvania  soldiers  and    to   dispute    their    engage- 
from    the  commencement  were  ments.' — Ibid.  vi.  471.     See  vii. 
almost  universally  engaged   for  166. 

the  war.    When  they  saw  the  a  See  Galloway's  Examination. 

Eastern  levies  in  the  beginning  *  Documents    relating    to    the 

of  last  campaign  who  had  re-  Colonial  History  of  New  York, 

ceived  enormous  bounties,  many,  viii.  800. 

B  thousand  pounds  and  upwards  *  Bamsay,  ii.  184, 


en.  xiv.         WEAKNESS  OF  THE  AMERICANS,    1780.  395 

unpaid.  A  committee  appointed  by  Congress  to  exa- 
mine the  state  of  the  army  of  Washington  in  May  1780, 
reported  that  it  had  been  unpaid  for  five  months ;  that 
it  seldom  had  more  than  six  days'  provision  in  advance ; 
that  it  had  frequently  for  several  successive  days  been 
without  meat ;  that  the  forage  was  exhausted  ;  that  the 
medical  department  had  neither  sugar,  coffee,  tea,  choco- 
late, wine,  nor  spirituous  liquors  of  any  kind;  'that 
every  department  of  the  army  was  without  money,  and 
had  not  even  the  shadow  of  credit  left ;  that  the  patience 
of  the  soldiers,  borne  down  by  the  pressure  of  compli- 
cated sufferings,  was  on  the  point  of  being  exhausted/  * 
These  representations  must  be  borne  in  mind  if  we 
would  judge  with  equity  the  party  in  England  which 
still  hoped  to  subdue  America.  The  expectation  was 
represented  by  the  Opposition  at  the  time,  and  it  has 
been  commonly  represented  by  later  historians,  as  little 
short  of  insane.  That  it  was  erroneous  will  now  hardly 
be  disputed,  but  it  was  certainly  not  altogether  unrea- 
sonable. Reports  of  the  most  sanguine  kind  were  con- 
stantly laid  before  the  Ministers.  In  February  1780, 
before  the  capture  of  Charleston  and  subjugation  of 
South  Carolina,  Governor  Tryon  wrote  that  c  the  friendly 
part  of  America  keep  up  their  spirits  and  are  sanguine 
.  .  .  that  the  reunion  of  the  Empire  will  be  yet 
happily  established,  and  those  who  have  been  with  cir- 
cumstances of  cruelty  drove  from  their  estates  and 
families  restored/2  Loyalists  declared  that  'the  ma- 
jority on  the  west  side  of  the  Connecticut  are  desirous 
of  the  restoration  of  the  King's  authority,  and  that 
in  many  towns  and  districts  both  in  New  York,  Con- 
necticut, and  Massachusetts  Bay  they  are  nearly  all  so.' 


1  Ramsay,  ii.  188,  189.  See,  *  Documents  relating  to  the 
too,  Washington's  Works,  vii.  56,  Colonial  History  of  New  York, 
105.  viii.  781. 


396    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xiv. 

They  assured  the  Government  that  the  number  of  the 
King's  friends  had  been  steadily  increasing  since  the 
proposals  of  the  Royal  Commissioners;  that  the  pressing 
calamities  of  the  time  were  almost  daily  adding  to  them ; 
that  the  forced  requisitions  of  food  and  drafts  of  men 
were  exciting  bitter  resistance ;  that  farmers  refused  to 
raise  more  than  was  sufficient  for  their  own  consump- 
tion, conceiving  that  the  improvement  of  their  farms 
would  only  tend  to  feed  and  prolong  the  rebellion ;  that 
at  least  half  the  rebel  army  were  on  the  brink  of  deser- 
tion or  revolt.1  Lord  George  Germaine  stated  that  all 
the  private  letters  from  America  were  filled  with  repre- 
sentations of  the  general  distress  and  sufferings  of  the 
people,  the  discontent  of  the  rebel  troops,  and  the 
universal  wish  for  peace.  From  the  middle  colonies,  he 
was  assured,  no  recruits  could  be  drawn,  the  militia 
would  not  submit  to  be  drafted,  and  the  only  hope  the 
Americans  possessed  of  continuing  the  war  depended 
on  foreign  aid.2  The  French  Admiral,  De  Ternay, 
wrote,  in  the  summer  of  1780,  to  Vergennes:  *  The 
fate  of  North  America  is  yet  very  uncertain,  and  the 
Revolution  is  not  so  far  advanced  as  it  has  been  believed 
in  Europe.'3  Count  Fersen,  who,  in  after  years,  was 
known  as  one  of  the  most  devoted  friends  of  Marie  An- 
toinette, was  quartered  in  Rhode  Island  in  the  autumn 
of  1780,  as  the  aide-de-camp  to  Count  Rochambeau,  and 
he  described  all  the  classes  in  that  New  England  pro- 
vince who  possessed  any  property  as,  anxious  to  be 

1  Documents    relating  to  the  Washington,  speaking  of  the  new 
Colonial  History  of  New  York,  levies,  says  :  *  Pennsylvania  has 
viii.  783,  787.  given  us  not  quite  400,  and  seema 

2  See  this  letter  in  a  note  to  to  think  that  she  has  done  ad- 
Washington's    Works,    vii.    30.  inirably  well.     Jersey  has  given 
Lord  G.  Germaine's  intelligence  us  fifty  or  sixty.    But  I  do  not 
about  the  middle  colonies  seems  despair  of  Jersey.' — Ibid.  p.  125. 
to  have  been  substantially  correct.          8  Ibid.  p.  200. 

In  a  letter  written  in  July  1780, 


CH.  xiv.  LOYALTY    OF   NEW    YORK.  897 

reconciled  to  England,  and  the  whole  province,  as  sink- 
ing into  ruin  through  the  civil  war  of  its  inhabitants.1 
In  the  province  of  New  York  there  was  a  large  district, 
called  West  Chester  County,  extending  nearly  thirty 
miles  from  north  to  south,  which  was  once  thickly  popu- 
lated and  admirably  cultivated,  and  was  now  almost 
wholly  at  the  mercy  of  the  revolutionary  banditti  called 
the  Cowboys,  and  the  loyalist  banditti  called  the  Skin- 
ners, who  were  alternately  plundering  the  few  inhabitants 
who  remained.2 

The  ardent  loyalty  of  the  town  of  New  York  was 
exceedingly  encouraging  to  the  English.  During  the 
long  course  of  its  occupation,  no  trouble  appears  to 
have  been  experienced  from  its  inhabitants  ;  the  neigh- 
bouring seas  swarmed  with  New  York  privateers  prey- 
ing on  the  commerce  of  the  revolted  States,  and  when 
the  freezing  of  the  waters  exposed  the  town  to  inva- 
sion, it  was  to  the  loyalty  of  the  inhabitants  them- 
selves that  the  English  chiefly  appealed.  The  appeal 
was  at  once  and  enthusiastically  responded  to,  and 
Governor  Robertson,  who  had  succeeded  Tryon  in  com- 
mand, wrote  that  all  the  English  troops  might  be  safely 
led  away  from  New  York  to  encounter  the  enemy,  for 
the  town  would  be  perfectly  secure  under  the  protection 


1  He  says   of  Ehode  Island :  de  la  campagne  en  sont.    Les 

4  C'est  un    pays    qui    sera   fort  Torys  sont  pour  les  Anglais,  ou 

heureux   s'il    jouit    d'une    paix  pour  mieux  dire,  pour  la  paix, 

longue,  et  si  les  deux  partis  qui  sans  trop  se  soucier  d'etre  libres 

le  divisent  a  present  ne  lui  font  ou  dependants ;  ce  sont  les  gens 

subir  le  sort  de  la  Pologne  et  de  d'une  classe  plus  distinguee,  les 

tant  d'autres  republiques.    Ces  seuls  qui  eussent  des  biens  dans 

deux    partis    sont     appeles    les  le  pays.  .  .  .  Lorsque  les  Whigs 

Whigs  et  les  Torys.    Le  premier  sont  les  plus  forts,  ils  pillent  les 

est  entierement  pour  la  liberte  et  autres    tant    qu'ils    peuvent.' — 

1'independance ;   il  est  compose  Lettres    du    Comte    Fersen,    i. 

de  gens  de  la  plus  basse  extrac-  40,  41. 

tion  qui  ne  possedent  point  de          'J   Sparks's  Life   of   Benedict 

biens;  la  plupart  des  habitants  Arnold,  p.  219. 


398    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  XIT. 

of  6,000  of  its  own  armed  citizens.1  The  historian 
of  the  American  loyalists  observes  that  in  April  1775, 
out  of  the  thirty-seven  newspapers  then  published  in 
the  colonies,  seven  or  eight  were  in  the  interest  of  the 
Crown,  and  the  remainder  Whig,  but  that  in  the  course 
of  the  war  no  less  than  five  of  the  latter  went  over  to 
the  loyalists.2 

It  was  indeed  evident  that  the  revolutionary  move- 
ment depended  almost  entirely  upon  the  assistance  of 
France.  Washington  himself  frankly  admitted  that  it 
was  impossible,  at  least  under  existing  circumstances, 
to  accomplish  without  it  either  of  the  two  capital  objects 
of  the  war,  the  capture  of  New  York,  or  the  expulsion 
of  the  English  from  the  Southern  States.3  Count 
Rochambeau,  who  was  in  constant  communication  with 
Washington,  speaking  of  this  period,  states  that  the 
American  General  '  feared,  and  not  without  foundation, 
considering  the  absolute  discredit  of  the  finances  of 
Congress,  that  the  struggles  of  this  campaign  would  be 
the  last  efforts  of  expiring  patriotism/4  and  Washington 
himself,  in  a  letter  written,  in  August  1780,  to  the 
President  of  the  Congress,  expressed  a  very  similar 
opinion.  The  period  of  service  of  half  of  the  army,  he 
said,  would  expire  at  the  end  of  the  year.  '  The  shadow 
of  an  army  that  will  remain  will  have  every  motive 
except  mere  patriotism  to  abandon  the  service,  without 
the  hope,  which  has  hitherto  supported  them,  of  a  change 


1  Documents  relating    to   the  papers.    He  says :  '  Sa  Majest6 
Colonial  History  of  New  York,  vous   autorise  en  outre  a  con- 
viii,  789,  792.  tinuer  les  donatifs  que  M.  Gerard 

2  Sabine's  American  Loyalists,  a  donnes  ou  promis  a  differonts 
i.  49.    A  curious  passage  in  a  auteurs  americains,  et  dont  ce 
letter  of  instructions  from  Ver-  dernier  vous  aura  surement  remis 
gennes    to    M.    de    la    Luzerne  la  note.'— Circourt,  iii.  283. 
(Sept.  25,  1779)  makes  it  prob-  8   Washington's    Works,    vii. 
able  that  the  French  subsidised  38-42,  106,  176,  187,  206. 
some  of  the  anti-English  news-  *  Ibid.  p.  171. 


en.  XIT.  FRENCH  ARRIVE  AT  NEWPORT.  399 

for  the  better.  This  is  almost  extinguished  now,  and 
certainly  will  not  outlive  the  campaign  unless  it  finds 
something  more  substantial  to  rest  upon.  ...  To  me 
it  will  appear  miraculous  if  our  affairs  can  maintain 
themselves  much  longer  in  their  present  train.  If  either 
the  temper  or  the  resources  of  the  country  will  not 
admit  of  an  alteration,  we  may  expect  soon  to  be 
reduced  to  the  humiliating  condition  of  seeing  the 
cause  of  America  in  America  upheld  by  foreign  arms.'1 
Looking,  indeed,  over  the  whole  struggle,  it  seemed  to 
Washington  little  less  than  a  miracle  that  the  American 
Kevolution  had  not  long  since  terminated,  and  one  of 
the  chief  reasons  of  its  continuance  was  the  strange  in- 
activity and  folly  which  the  English  had  shown  during 
its  earlier  stages.2 

No  measures  of  any  great  military  importance  were 
taken  in  the  Northern  States  before  the  arrival  of  a 
French  fleet  and  army  at  Newport  on  July  10,  1780. 
The  fleet  consisted  of  seven  ships  of  the  line  besides 
frigates  and  transports,  commanded  by  the  Chevalier  de 
Ternay,  and  the  army  of  about  6,000  men  under  the 
command  of  Count  Rochambeau.  The  French  Govern- 
ment at  the  same  time  sent  out  instructions,  very  gene- 
rously placing  their  own  troops  under  the  command  of 
Washington,  and  ordering  that,  when  the  French  and 
American  armies  were  united,  American  officers  were  to 
command  French  officers  of  equal  rank.3  The  expedition 
was  to  be  followed  later  in  the  year  by  a  second  division, 
but  it  was  hoped  that,  with  the  assistance  of  the  force 
already  arrived,  the  Americans  could  accomplish  their 
great  object  of  recapturing  New  York.  This  expectation, 

1  Washington's  Wor fcs,vii.  159,  quotation),  reviewing  the  whole 

160.  war."  Ibid.  pp.  162,  163. 

*  See  a  very  remarkable  pas-  *  Ibid.  i.  336.  Stedman,  ii.  245. 

sage  (unfortunately  too  long  for 


400    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xiv. 

however,  was  not  verified,  and  the  English,  having 
received  the  assistance  of  six  British  ships  of  the  line 
which  had  followed  the  French  across  the  Atlantic, 
speedily  took  the  offensive.  Clinton  embarked  6,000 
men  at  New  York  and  resolved  to  attack  the  French  in 
Newport ;  but  a  delay  in  the  arrival  of  transports,  which 
gave  the  French  time  to  fortify  themselves,  a  difference 
of  opinion  between  Clinton  and  Admiral  Arbuthnot,  who 
commanded  the  fleet,  and  a  threatening  movement  of 
Washington  in  the  direction  of  New  York,  led  to  the 
abandonment  of  the  enterprise.  The  English  fleet,  how- 
ever, blockaded  the  French  fleet,  and  the  French  army, 
together  with  some  American  militia,  was  kept  inactive 
for  its  protection.  Even  for  gunpowder  the  Americana 
were  now  dependent  on  French  assistance,  and  Washing- 
ton said  that  an  additional  supply  of  100  tons  was  neces- 
sary if  he  was  to  make  a  serious  attempt  on  New  York.1 
It  was  determined  to  take  no  step  till  the  second 
French  expedition  arrived,  or  at  least  till  the  French 
had  obtained  a  naval  ascendency  on  the  coast.  On 
August  16  a  French  frigate  reached  Boston  bringing 
large  supplies  of  guns,  cannon,  and  powder  for  the 
Americans,  but  it  also  brought  the  disastrous  news  that 
the  second  division  of  Count  Rochambeau's  army,  upon 
which  such  great  hopes  were  based,  was  blockaded  in 
the  harbour  of  Brest  by  an  English  fleet  of  thirty- two 
sail.2  It  was  evident  that  the  old  Queen  of  the  Sea  was 
fast  regaining  her  ascendency,  and  that  in  spite  of  all 
the  odds  that  were  against  her  she  could  still  be  terrible 
to  her  enemies.  After  a  careful  consultation  it  was  de- 
cided that  the  attempt  to  dislodge  the  English  from  New 
York  must  be  indefinitely  postponed.  It  was  remem- 
bered, however,  that  the  French  had  in  old  days  been  on 
very  good  terms  with  the  Indians,  and  an  earnest  though 

1  Washington's  Works,  vii.  135.  «  Ibid.  p.  176. 


CH.  xiv.        CONGRESS  AND  THE  ARMY.          401 

unsuccessful  effort  was  made  to  excite  by  French  influ- 
ence an  Indian  rising  against  the  English.1 

The  extreme  jealousy  of  the  army  which  had  always 
prevailed  in  Congress,  and  the  meddling,  domineering 
spirit  in  which  the  lawyers  at  Philadelphia  constantly 
acted  towards  the  officers,  might  have  produced  the  worst 
consequences  but  for  the  courtesy  and  self-control  with 
which  Washington  was  so  eminently  endowed.  In  the 
highest  ranks  of  the  army  there  were  constant  and 
sudden  changes.  Schuyler,  though  one  of  the  most  es- 
timable of  the  American  generals,  had  been  superseded. 
St.  Clair  experienced  the  same  fate.  Sullivan  threw 
up  his  commission  in  disgust.  Gates  was  superseded 
and  brought  before  a  court-martial  after  his  defeat  at 
Camden;  and  Greene,  one  of  the  favourite  officers  of 
Washington,  resigned  in  indignation  his  office  of  Quar- 
termaster-General on  account  of  some  measures  of  Con- 
gress altering  the  office,  as  he  conceived,  to  his  prejudice. 
Congress,  in  its  irritation,  gravely  meditated  depriving 
him  of  his  commission,  but  relinquished  the  intention 
in  consequence  of  an  admirable  letter  of  Washington, 
who  urged  the  extremely  bad  effect  that  such  a  measure 
would  have  upon  the  army,  and  especially  upon  the 
officers,  who  were  in  truth  sacrificing  more  than  any 
other  class  of  the  American  people  for  the  national 
cause.2 

1  Washington's     Works,    vii.  their  labours  crowned  with  suc- 
183,  184.  cess  could  possibly  induce  them 

2  He  says  it  needs  '  no  argu-  to  continue  one  moment  in  ser- 
ments  to  prove  that  there  is  no  vice  ;    that   no   officer  can  live 
set  of  men  in  the  United  States,  upon  his  pay ;   that  hundreds, 
considered  as  a  body,  that  have  having  spent  their  little  all  in 
made  the  same  sacrifices  of  their  addition  to  their  scanty  public 
interests  in  support  of  the  com-  allowance,  have  resigned  because 
jnon  cause  as  the  officers  of  the  they  could    no    longer  support 
American  army  ;     that  nothing  themselves     as    officers  ;     that 
but  a  love  of  their  country,  of  numbers    are    at    this   moment 
honour,  and  a'  desire  of  seeing  rendered  unfit  for  duty  for  want 


402   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


CH.  XIV, 


I  have  already  briefly  noticed  the  dismissal  of 
General  Lee  after  the  battle  of  Monmouth,  for  disobe- 
dience to  the  orders  of  Washington.  It  was  a  fortunate 
event  for  the  Americans,  for  it  is  probable  that  Lee 
would  have  taken  an  early  opportunity  to  betray  them. 
He  had  shown,  from  the  beginning  of  the  contest,  a 
laudable  desire  to  appease  the  quarrel  by  personal  ne- 
gotiations with  English  generals ;  and  he  declared  his 
conviction  that  in  the  first  stages  of  the  war  the  Ameri- 
cans would  have  been  perfectly  ready  to  submit  in  every 
respect  to  Great  Britain,  provided  they  might  them- 
selves raise,  in  any  way  they  thought  proper,  the  sum 
Parliament  required  of  them.  He  afterwards,  as  we 
have  seen,  expressed  himself  disgusted  with  the  conduct 
of  his  soldiers,  and  wholly  disappointed  in  the  dispo- 
sitions of  the  American  people,  and  in  March  1777, 
being  then  a  prisoner  in  the  English  camp,  he  drew  up 
for  the  English  a  plan  for  effecting  the  conquest  of 
America.  In  this  remarkable  document,  he  expressed 
his  firm  belief  that  America  must  inevitably  be  sub- 
dued, and  that  it  was  therefore  desirable  both  for  her 
and  the  mother  country  that  the  war  should  be  termi- 
nated with  as  little  delay  and  bloodshed  as  possible. 
He  urgently  dwelt  on  the  necessity  of  a  wide  amnesty, 
and  moderate  and  liberal  terms,  and  he  then  proceeded 
to  designate  certain  points  which  ought  to  be  taken 
possession  of  by  the  English  in  order  to  sever  New 
England  from  the  other  colonies,  and  secure  the  imme- 
diate subjugation  of  the  Southern  provinces.  If  this 
plan  were  adopted,  and  a  proclamation  of  amnesty 
issued,  and  if  no  untoward  accident,  such  as  a  rupture 


of  clothing,  while  the  rest  are  too,  a  striking  statement  of  the 

wasting  their  property,  and  some  case  of  the  officers  in  a  letter  of 

of  them  verging  fast  to  the  gulf  General  Greene  to  Washington, 

of  poverty  and  distress.' — Wash-  — Ibid.  p.  53. 
ington'sJForfcs,vii.l50,151.  See, 


CB.  xiv.  BENEDICT  ARNOLD.  403 

with  a  European  Power,  occurred,  lie  was  convinced 
that  in  two  months  every  spark  of  civil  war  would  be 
extinguished  in  the  colonies.1 

The  Americans,  though  they  were  well  aware  of  the 
insubordinate  and  capricious  character  of  Lee,  appear 
to  have  had  no  suspicion  whatever  of  his  treason,  but  in 
September  1780  a  terrible  shock  was  given  to  the  con- 
fidence of  their  army  by  the  discovery  of  the  treachery 
of  Benedict  Arnold. 

To  anyone  who  attentively  follows  the  letters  of 
Washington,  it  will  appear  evident  that  there  was  no 
officer  in  the  American  army  of  whom  for  a  long  period 
he  wrote  in  terms  of  higher,  warmer,  and  more  frequent 
eulogy.  Arnold  was  in  truth  an  eminently  brave  and 
skilful  soldier,  and  in  the  early  stages  of  the  struggle 
his  services  had  been  of  the  most  distinguished  kind. 
In  conjunction  with  Colonel  Allen,  he  had  obtained  the 
first  great  success  of  the  war  by  capturing  Ticonderoga 
and  Crown  Point  in  the  summer  of  1775.  He  had  fallen 
wounded  leading  the  forlorn  hope  against  Quebec  on 
the  memorable  day  on  which  Montgomery  was  killed. 
In  the  gallant  stand  that  was  made  at  Ticonderoga  in 
October  1776,  he  had  been  placed  at  the  head  of  the 
American  fleet,  and  his  defence  of  Lake  Champlain 
against  overwhelming  odds  had  been  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  episodes  of  the  whole  American  war.  He  took 
a  leading  part  in  the  campaign  which  ended  with  the 
capitulation  of  Saratoga,  led  in  person  that  fierce  attack 
on  the  British  lines  on  October  7,  1777,  which  made 
the  position  of  Burgoyne  a  hopeless  one,  was  himself 
one  of  the  first  men  to  enter  the  British  lines,  and 
fell  severely  wounded  at  the  head  of  his  troops.  No 
American  soldier  had  shown  a  more  reckless  courage. 


1  See  The  Treason  of  General      brarian  of  the  New  York  Histori- 
Lee,  by  George  H.  Moore   (Li-      cal  Society). 


404:   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xiv. 

Hardly  any  had  displayed  greater  military  skill  or  pos- 
sessed to  a  higher  degree  the  confidence  of  the  army ; 
and  if  the  wound  which  he  received  near  Saratoga  had 
proved  fatal,  the  name  of  Benedict  Arnold  would  have 
now  ranked  among  the  very  foremost  in  the  hagiology 
of  American  patriotism. 

His  early  letters  seem  to  show  beyond  question  that 
he  began  his  career  as  a  genuine  Whig,  but  he  had 
probably  always  been  of  a  type  which  is  common  and 
prominent  in  all  revolutions.  Conscious  of  unbounded 
energy  and  courage,  of  a  strong  will,  and  of  very  con- 
siderable military  capacities,  he  saw  in  the  troubles 
which  had  arisen  an  opportunity  of  carving  his  way 
from  the  position  of  bookseller,  druggist,  and  smuggler 
in  a  small  town  in  Connecticut,  to  great  wealth  and 
world-wide  honour.  He  was  a  man  of  coarse  fibre  and 
violent  ambition,  delighting  in  adventure  and  combat, 
very  extravagant  in  his  tastes,  and  at  the  same  time 
very  arrogant,  irritable,  and  insubordinate  in  his  temper. 
A  number  of  serious  charges,  some  of  them  affecting  his 
personal  integrity,  were  brought  against  him  relating  to 
incidents  in  his  Canadian  career ;  but  the  only  charges 
which  were  submitted  to  an  official  investigation  were 
fully  disproved,  and  the  Board  of  War,  in  a  report 
which  was  confirmed  by  Congress,  pronounced  Arnold 
to  have  been  '  cruelly  and  groundlessly  aspersed.'  This 
appears  to  have  been  the  opinion  of  Washington,  who 
continued  to  give  him  his  full  confidence ;  it  was  the 
opinion  of  Schuyler,  who  commanded  the  army  in 
Canada,1  and  John  Adams  afterwards  expressed  his 
belief  that  Arnold  had  been  'basely  slandered  and 
libelled.' 2  There  were  men,  however,  in  Congress  who 
greatly  disliked  him,  and  seemed  to  feel  a  peculiar 
pleasure  in  humiliating  him.;  and  in  February  1777, 

1  See  Arnold's  Life  of  Arnold,  p.  104.       2  Familiar  Letters,  p.  27ft- 


CH.  xiv.  BENEDICT  ARNOLD.  405 

when  Congress  appointed  five  major-generals,  Arnold 
was  not  on  the  list,  though  every  one  of  the  officers 
appointed  was  his  junior  in  standing.  Washington  was 
extremely  displeased  at  this  marked  slight  shown  to  one 
who,  as  he  truly  said,  had  <  always  distinguished  himself 
as  a  judicious,  brave  officer,  of  great  activity,  enterprise, 
and  perseverance/  The  letters  of  Arnold  show  how 
keenly  he  felt  the  wrong,  and  he  spoke  seriously  of 
throwing  up  his  commission,  but  was  dissuaded  by 
Washington.  A  few  months  later  he  displayed  the 
most  splendid  daring  in  a  skirmish  with  the  English 
near  Danbury,  arid  his  horse  fell  pierced  by  no  less  than 
nine  bullets.  Congress  then  granted  him  the  promo- 
tion that  had  been  hitherto  withheld,  and  presented 
him  with  a  horse  as  a  token  of  his  conspicuous  gallantry, 
but  he  never  regained  his  seniority. 

The  wound  which  he  had  received  near  Saratoga  was 
painful  and  disabling,  and  he  for  a  long  time  could  only 
move  about  with  assistance.  Being  incapable  of  taking 
an  active  part  in  the  war,  Washington  placed  him  in 
command  at  Philadelphia  after  that  city  had  been 
evacuated  by  the  English,  and  he  there  fell  under  new 
and  powerful  influences.  His  first  wife  had  died  in  the 
summer  of  1775,  when  he  was  in  the  midst  of  his 
Northern  campaign,  and,  in  April  1779,  after  a  long 
courtship,  he  married  Miss  Shippen,  a  young  lady  of 
great  beauty  and  attraction,  who  belonged  to  one  of  the 
leading  families  in  Philadelphia,  and  to  a  family  of  Tory 
sympathies.  He  loved  her  deeply  and  faithfully,  and 
there  is  something  inexpressibly  touching  in  the  tender 
affection  and  the  undeviating  admiration  for  her  husband, 
which  she  retained  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  his 
dark  and  troubled  life.1  He  mixed  much  in  the  best 

1  See   her  sad  and  touching      interesting     Life    of    Benedict 
letters,  written  chiefly  from  Eng-       Arnold. 
land,  in  Mr.  Isaac  Arnold's  very 


406   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   en.  xrv. 

society  at  Philadelphia,  and  although  the  more  decided 
loyalists  had  been  driven  into  exile,  the  social  atmo- 
sphere was  still  very  Tory,  and  many  of  the  best  and 
most  respected  citizens  were  secretly  sighing  for  the 
overthrow  of  what  they  regarded  as  the  revolutionary 
tyranny,  and  for  a  return  to  the  settled  condition  of  the 
past.  He  kept  open  house,  plunged  into  expenses  fai 
greater  than  he  could  meet,  and,  like  many  other 
American  officers,  entered  into  several  enterprises  which 
were  not  military.  He  speculated  largely.  He  took 
part  in  various  commercial  undertakings.  He  had 
shares  in  privateering  expeditions,  but  his  speculations 
do  not  appear  to  have  been  successful,  and  he  was 
sinking  rapidly  into  debt.  Party  spirit  ran  furiously 
at  Philadelphia,  and  Arnold,  who  had  nothing  of  the 
tact  and  self-control  of  Washington,  soon  made  many 
enemies.  A  long  series  of  charges  against  him  were 
laid  before  Congress,  some  of  them  deeply  affecting  his 
honour,  and  amounting  to  little  short  of  an  imputation 
of  swindling,  while  others  were  of  the  most  trivial  de- 
scription. Congress  referred  the  matter  to  a  committee, 
which  reported  in  favour  of  Arnold  ;  but,  in  spite  of  this 
report,  Congress  insisted  on  sending  Arnold,  on  some  of 
the  charges,  before  a  court-martial.  The  proceedings 
were  greatly  delayed,  and  nearly  a  year  passed  between 
the  promulgation  of  the  charges  and  the  final  decision, 
and  during  all  this  time  the  commander  of  the  chief 
town  in  the  States,  and  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
generals  in  the  American  service,  was  kept  in  a  condi- 
tion of  the  most  painful  and  humiliating  suspense.  He 
resented  it  fiercely,  and  was  little  mollified  by  theresulb 
of  the  court-martial.  On  all  the  graver  charges  he  was 
acquitted,  and  he  was  condemned  only  on  two  counts  of 
the  most  petty  character.  He  had  exceeded  his  powers 
in  giving  a  passport  to  a  vessel  containing  American 
property  which  was  in  Philadelphia  while  that  town  was 


CM.  xiv.  BENEDICT  ARNOLD.  407 

occupied  by  the  English,  and  he  had,  on  one  occasion, 
employed  public  waggons  to  convey  some  of  his  private 
property.  This,  the  court-martial  said,  ought  not  to 
have  been  done,  though  Arnold  '  had  no  design  of  em- 
ploying the  waggons  otherwise  than  at  his  own  private 
expense,  nor  of  defrauding  the  public,  nor  of  injuring  or 
impeding  the  public  service/  For  these  two  offences  he 
was  condemned  to  the  great  humiliation  of  a  formal  and 
a  public  reprimand. 

Washington,  who  was  obliged  to  execute  the  sen- 
tence of  the  court-martial,  did  the  utmost  in  his  power 
to  mitigate  the  blow,  and  nothing  could  be  more  skilful 
than  the  language l  with  which  he  made  his  reprimand 
the  vehicle  of  a  high  eulogy  on  the  services  and  the 
character  of  Arnold.  While  the  sentence  of  the  court- 
martial  was  in  suspense,  another  stroke  had  fallen  which 
affected  both  his  fortune  and  his  reputation.  During 
his  command  in  Canada,  he  had  often  acted  as  commis- 
sary and  quartermaster.  Much  public  money  had  passed 
through  his  hands,  and  he  had  large  claims  upon  Con- 
gress. His  accounts  were  examined  at  great  length, 
and  after  great  delay,  by  the  Board  of  Treasury  and  by 
a  committee  of  Congress ;  they  were  found  to  be  in 
much  confusion,  which  was  possibly  due  to  the  hurry 
and  turmoil  of  an  active  campaign,  and  a  large  part  of 
the  claims  of  Arnold  were  disallowed.  How  far  the 
sentence  was  just,  it  is  now  impossible  to  say.  The 

1  « Our  profession  is  the  chas-  towards  our  citizens.  Exhibit 
test  of  all.  The  shadow  of  a  fault  again  those  splendid  qualities 
tarnishes  our  most  brilliant  ac-  which  have  placed  you  in  the 
tions.  The  least  inadvertence  rank  of  our  most  distinguished 
may  cause  us  to  lose  that  public  generals.  As  far  as  it  shall  be  in 
favour  which  is  so  hard  to  be  my  power  I  will  myself  furnish 
gained.  I  reprimand  you  for  you  with  opportunities  for  regain- 
having  forgotten  that  in  proper-  ing  the  esteeem  which  you  have 
tion  as  you  had  rendered  yourself  formerly  enjoyed.' — Sparks'sl/i/fl 
formidable  to  our  enemies,  you  of  Arnold,  p.  145. 
should  have  shown  moderation 
28 


408   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xiv. 

character  of  Arnold  gives  no  presumption  that  he  would 
have  shown  scrupulous  integrity  in  money  dealings; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Congress  was  full  of  his  per- 
sonal enemies,  who  were  determined  by  any  means  to 
hunt  him  down,  and  he  loudly  and  vehemently  declared 
that  his  judges  had  been  actuated  by  private  resentment 
or  undue  influence,  and  that  they  were  wholly  unfit  to 
give  any  impartial  judgment  on  his  case.1  Ruin  seemed 
now  staring  him  in  the  face,  and  he  even  made  an  appli- 
cation, without  success,  for  money  to  the  representative 
of  the  French  Government. 

It  is  easy  to  conceive  the  influence  of  these  things 
upon  a  proud,  violent,  ambitious,  and  unprincipled  man, 
conscious  of  having  rendered  great  services  to  his 
country,  and  at  this  very  time  suffering  under  the  irri- 
tation and  the  impotence  arising  from  a  severe  wound. 
Early  in  1779  he  had  sent  some  letters  to  Clinton  under 
the  name  of  Gustavus,  in  which,  without  revealing  his 
name  or  his  rank,  and  without  making  any  positive 
overtures,  he  had  expressed  his  dislike  to  the  French 
alliance,  and  had  from  time  to  time  given  the  British 
commander  pieces  of  authentic  intelligence.  On  the 
English  side  the  correspondence  was  chiefly  conducted 
under  a  false  name  by  Major  Andre,  the  Adjutant- 
General  of  the  British  army,  a  young  officer  of  singular 
promise  and  popularity.  After  the  sentence  of  the 
court-martial,  Arnold  appears  at  last  to  have  fully  deter- 
mined to  go  over  to  the  English,  and  he  was  equally 
determined  not  to  go  over  as  a  mere  insignificant  and 
isolated  individual.  Ambition,  cupidity,  and  revenge 
must  all  be  gratified.  At  Saratoga  he  had  done  much 
to  ruin  the  British  cause.  He  would  now  undo,  and 
more  than  undo,  his  work,  annihilate  by  an  act  of 
skilful  treachery  the  only  considerable  army  in  the 

1  See  his  petition  in  Washington's  Works,  vi.  529,  530. 


en.  xiv.  TREASON   OF  ARNOLD.  409 

North,  restore  America  at  once  to  peace  and  to  the 
British,  rule,  and  make  himself  the  Monk  of  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution. 

Few  great  plots  have  more  nearly  succeeded. 
Though  there  had  been  murmurs  about  the  leniency  of 
Arnold  to  Tories  and  about  the  admission  of  Tories  into 
his  society,  his  fidelity  to  the  American  cause  seems  to 
have  been  quite  unsuspected,  and  Washington  especially 
looked  upon  him  with  the  most  perfect  confidence.  On 
the  plea  that  his  wound  was  not  yet  sufficiently  cured, 
Arnold  excused  himself  from  serving  actively  with 
Washington  in  the  field,  but  he  asked  for  and  easily 
obtained  the  command  -of  Westpoint,  which  included 
all  the  American  forts  in  the  highlands,  and  was  the 
essential  key  of  the  whole  American  position.1  He 
arrived  at  Westpoint  in  the  first  week  of  August,  and 
lost  very  little  time  in  concerting  with  Clinton  for  a 
surrender  of  the  post  to  the  British. 

Clinton  has  been  absurdly  blamed  for  listening  to 
these  overtures,  but  he  only  acted  as  any  general  of  any 
nation  would  have  acted,  and  he  would  have  deserved 
the  gravest  censure  if  he  had  neglected  such  an  oppor- 
tunity of  bringing  to  an  end  the  desolation  and  the 
bloodshed  of  the  war.  It  was  necessary  to  send  a  confi- 
dential agent  to  arrange  the  details  of  the  surrender 
and  the  terms  of  the  bargain,  and  this  ta.sk  was  com- 
mitted to  Andre.  Arnold  invited  him  to  come  within 
the  American  lines,  but  both  Clinton  and  Andre"  him- 
self positively  declined  the  proposal,  and  Clinton  was 
determined  that  nothing  should  be  done  that  could 
bring  Andre  under  the  category  of  a  spy.  A  British 
sloop  called  the  '  Vulture/  with  Andre  on  board,  sailed 

1  It  may  be  noticed  that    a  Polish  hero,  whose   services  in 

great  part  of  the  works  at  West-  America  were  warmly  eulogised 

point  had  been  constructed  under  by    Washington.— Washington's 

the  direction  of  Kosciusko,  the  Works,  vii.  148. 


410   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  XJT. 

up  the  Hudson  Eiver  to  within  a  few  miles  of  the 
American  camp  ;  and  Washington  having  just  left  the 
oamp  on  a  visit  to  the  French  commander  at  Hartford, 
a  boat,  with  muffled  oars,  was  sent  by  Arnold  a  little 
before  midnight  to  the  '  Vulture '  to  bring  Andre  to 
shore.  The  boatmen  were  wholly  ignorant  of  the 
nature  of  their  mission.  They  were  furnished  with  a 
passport  authorising  them  to  pass  freely  with  a  flag  of 
truce,  but  they  were  told  that  it  was  of  public  interest 
that  the  expedition  should  be  secret.  Arnold  and 
Andre  met  at  a  lonely  spot  on  the  bank  of  the  river. 
The  meeting  was  on  the  night  of  September  21.  Andre 
wore  his  uniform,  covered  by  a  blue  great-coat,  and 
the  spot  where  the  interview  took  place  was  outside  the 
American  lines,  so  that  if  they  had  been  arrested  there, 
Andre  could  not  have  been  treated  otherwise  than  as  a 
prisoner  of  war.  The  nights,  however,  were  still  short, 
and  the  daylight  having  dawned  before  the  affair  was 
fully  arranged,  it  became  necessary  either  to  leave  it 
unfinished  and  risk  the  dangers  of  a  second  interview, 
or  else  to  seek  some  place  of  concealment.  Arnold 
then  induced  Andre  to  enter  the  American  lines  and 
take  shelter  in  the  house  of  a  man  named  Smith,  who 
was  devoted  to  the  American  General,  and  who  had 
already  been  employed  to  bring  Andre  to  shore.  He 
remained  there  during  the  day,  and  in  the  evening,  all 
being  arranged,  Andre  prepared  to  return. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  the  '  Vulture  '  had  been 
noticed  with  suspicion  by  the  American  soldiers,  and 
had  been  compelled  to  change  her  position  in  conse- 
quence of  a  cannon  which  was  brought  to  bear  on  her. 
The  risk  of  carrying  Andre  back  by  water  was  so  great 
that  Smith  refused  to  incur  it,  and  the  only  chance  of 
safety  was  to  return  by  land  to  New  York,  a  distance 
of  about  thirty  miles.  To  accomplish  this  object  Andre 
exchanged  his  British  uniform  for  a  civilian's  dress ;  he 


CH.  XIT.  CAPTURE   OF   ANDR&  411 

obtained  from  Arnold  a  pass  enabling  him  under  the 
name  of  John  Anderson  to  traverse  the  American  lines, 
and  he  concealed  in  his  boots  unsigned  papers  written 
by  Arnold  containing  such  full  and  detailed  information 
as  would  enable  Clinton  without  difficulty  to  seize  the 
fortifications  of  Westpoint.  On  the  evening  of  the 
22nd  he  passed  the  American  lines  in  safety  under  the 
guidance  of  Smith,  and  slept  in  a  house  beyond  them, 
and  the  next  day  he  set  out  alone  to  complete  his 
journey.  It  is  strange  to  think  how  largely  the  course 
of  modern  history  depended  upon  that  solitary  traveller, 
for  had  Andre  reached  New  York,  the  plot  would  almost 
certainly  have  succeeded,  and  the  American  Revolution 
been  crushed.  He  had  not,  however,  proceeded  far,  when 
he  was  stopped  by  three  young  men,  who  were  playing 
cards  near  the  road.  They  have  been  called  militiamen, 
but  appear,  according  to  better  accounts,  to  have  been 
members  of  a  party  who  were  engaged  in  cattle-stealing 
for  their  own  benefit.  Had  Andre  produced  at  once  his 
pass,  he  would  probably  have  been  allowed  to  proceed 
in  safety,  but  in  the  confusion  of  the  moment  he  believed 
that  the  men  were  British,  and  he  proclaimed  himself  a 
British  officer.  Finding  his  mistake,  he  then  produced 
his  pass,  but  his  captors  at  once  proceeded  to  search 
him,  and  though  they  found  little  or  no  money,  they 
discovered  the  papers  in  his  boots,  and  although  Andre 
promised  that  they  would  obtain  a  large  reward  if  they 
released  him,  or  took  him  to  New  York,  they  determined 
to  carry  him  to  the  nearest  American  outpost.1  Colonel 
Jamieson,  who  commanded  there,  recognised  the  hand- 
writing of  Arnold,  but  he  did  not  realise  the  treachery 
of  his  chief,  and  he  sent  a  letter  to  Arnold,  informing 

1  There  is  some  controversy  examination  of  the  subject  in  an 

about  the  character  of  the  captors  interesting  note  to  Jones's  His* 

of  Andre  and  the  incidents  of  his  tory  of  New  York,  i.  730-736. 
seizure.    The  reader  will  find  an 


412        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,      en.  sr», 

him  that  papers  of  a  very  compromising  character  had 
been  found  on  a  person  just  arrested,  who  carried  a 
pass  signed  by  the  General.  The  papers  were  sent  on 
to  Washington,  who  was  now  returning  from  Hartford. 

Arnold  was  expecting  the  arrival  of  Washington, 
and  his  house  was  filled  with  company  when  the  letter, 
announcing  the  arrest  of  Andre,  arrived.  For  a  moment 
he  is  said  to  have  changed  countenance,  but  he  quickly 
recovered  himself,  rose  from  the  table,  and  telling  his 
guests  that  he  had  an  immediate  call  to  visit  one  of  the 
forts  at  the  opposite  side  of  the  river,  he  ordered  a  horse 
to  be  at  once  brought  to  the  door.  He  called  his  wife 
upstairs,  and,  after  a  short  interview,  left  her  in  a  faint- 
ing condition,  mounted  his  horse,  galloped  at  full  speed 
down  the  steep  descent  to  the  river,  and,  springing  into 
a  barge,  ordered  the  boatmen  to  row  him  to  the  middle 
of  the  stream.  They  obeyed  his  command,  and  he  then 
told  them  to  row  swiftly  to  the  *  Vulture.'  He  was 
going  there,  he  said,  with  a  flag  of  truce,  and  as  he 
must  be  back  in  time  to  receive  Washington,  there  was 
not  a  moment  to  be  lost.  As  he  passed  the  American 
batteries  he  waved  a  white  handkerchief  as  a  sign  of 
truce,  and  in  a  short  time,  and  before  any  rumours  of 
his  treason  were  abroad,  he  stood  on  the  deck  under  the 
British  flag. 

He  wrote,  shortly  after,  more  than  one  letter  and 
address,  declaring  that  the  motive  of  his  conduct  was  a 
detestation  of  the  French  alliance,  and  that  he  only 
desired  to  restore  America  to  peace  and  true  liberty, 
and  to  fulfil  what  he  knew  to  be  the  secret  wish  of  a 
great  majority  of  his  countrymen.  It  is  not  surprising, 
however,  that  neither  contemporaries  nor  posterity  have 
attached  the  smallest  weight  to  these  declarations.  That 
the  position  of  an  American  loyalist  was  in  itself  a 
perfectly  upright  one,  will  hardly  indeed  be  questioned 
in  England,  and  will,  I  should  hope,  be  now  admitted 


CH.  XIY.         APOLOGIES  FOR  ARNOLD.  413 

by  all  reasonable  men  beyond  the  Atlantic,  and  it  is 
probably  below  the  truth  to  say  that  a  full  half  of  the 
more  honourable  and  respected  Americans  were  either 
openly  or  secretly  hostile  to  the  revolution.  There  was 
also  nothing  strange  or  dishonourable  in  men  who  had 
zealously  espoused  the  revolution  in  its  earlier  stages, 
passing,  after  the  legislation  of  1778  and  after  the 
French  alliance,  into  the  opposite  camp.  Every  griev- 
ance the  Americans  had  put  forward  as  a  reason  for 
taking  up  arms  had  been  redressed ;  every  claim  they 
had  resented  had  been  abandoned,  and  from  the  time 
when  the  English  Parliament  surrendered  all  right  of 
taxation  and  internal  legislation  in  the  colonies,  and 
when  the  English  Commissioners  laid  their  propositions 
before  the  Americans,  the  character  of  the  war  had 
wholly  changed.  It  was  no  longer  a  war  for  self-taxa- 
tion and  constitutional  liberty.  It  was  now  an  attempt, 
with  the  assistance  of  France  and  Spain,  to  establish 
independence  by  breaking  up  and  ruining  the  British 
empire.  It  may  also  be  readily  admitted  that  it  is 
probable  that  the  early  Whig  convictions  of  Arnold  had 
evaporated  under  the  influence  of  the  society  in  which 
he  had  lately  been  living.  Expressions  dropped  by  him 
were  afterwards  repeated  which  seemed  to  imply  that 
he  regretted  sincerely  the  continuance  of  the  war  and 
the  connection  with  France,  and  an  unsigned  letter 
addressed  to  him,  urging,  in  very  powerful  language, 
the  importance  on  purely  public  grounds  of  putting  a 
speedy  end  to  the  war,  was  found  among  his  papers. 
But,  when  all  this  is  said,  the  conduct  of  a  ruined  and 
desperate  soldier,  who,  having  been  placed,  by  the  full 
confidence  of  his  superior,  in  command  of  military  posts 
of  the  first  importance,  bargains  with  the  enemy  to  sur- 
render them  for  money,  will  admit  of  no  justification 
and  very  little  palliation.  Arnold  escaped  from  his 
many  creditors  in  America.  He  received  from  the 


414:   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  XIT. 

British  Government  a  sum  of  about  6,300Z.,  and  he  was 
appointed  colonel  of  a  British  regiment  with  the  brevet 
of  brigadier-general ;  but  he  carried  with  him  into  his 
new  service  the  brand  not  only  of  failure,  but  of  indelible 
disgrace,  and  his  feelings  must  have  been  doubly  poignant 
when  he  learned  that  the  gallant  soldier  whom  he  had 
led  within  the  American  lines  had  expiated  his  conduct 
on  the  gibbet. 

The  execution  of  Major  Andre  is,  indeed,  one  of  the 
saddest  episodes  of  the  American  war,  and  in  the  judg- 
ment of  many  it  left  a  deep  stain  on  the  reputation  of 
Washington.  The  victim  was  well  fitted  to  attract  to 
himself  a  halo  of  romantic  interest.  Though  only 
twenty-nine,  he  had  already  shown  the  promise  of  a 
brilliant  military  career.  He  was  a  skilful  artist ;  and 
the  singular  charm  of  his  conversation,  and  the  singular 
beauty  of  his  frank,  generous,  and  amiable  character, 
endeared  him  to  all  with  whom  he  came  in  contact,  and 
was  acknowledged  by  no  one  more  fully  than  by  those 
American  officers  with  whom  he  spent  the  last  sad  days 
of  his  life.  Nothing  could  be  more  dignified,  more 
courageous,  more  candid,  and  at  the  same  time  more 
free  from  everything  like  boasting  or  ostentation,  than 
his  conduct  under  the  terrible  trial  that  had  fallen  upon 
him,  and  it  is  even  now  impossible  to  read  without 
emotion  those  last  letters  in  which  he  commended  to  his 
country  and  his  old  commander  the  care  of  his  widowed 
mother,  and  asked  Washington  to  grant  him  a  single 
favour — that  he  might  die  the  death  of  a  soldier  and 
not  of  a  spy.  At  the  same  time  it  is  but  justice  to 
remember  that  he  suffered  under  the  unanimous  sentence 
of  a  board  consisting  of  fourteen  general  officers,  and 
that  two  of  these — Steuben  and  Lafayette — were  not 
Americans.  Nor  can  the  justice  of  the  sentence  in  my 
opinion  be  reasonably  impugned.  An  enemy  who  was 
in  the  camp  for  the  purpose  of  plotting  with  the  com- 


CH.  xiv.  EXECUTION   OF   ANDRE.  415 

mander  for  a  corrupt  surrender,  and  who  passed  through 
the  lines  in  a  civilian  dress,  under  a  false  name,  and 
with  papers  conveying  military  intelligence  to  the 
enemy,  did  unquestionably,  according  to  the  laws  of 
war,  fall  under  the  denomination  of  a  spy,  and  the 
punishment  awarded  to  spies  was  universally  recognised 
and  had  been  inflicted  by  both  sides  in  the  present  war. 
The  argument  by  which  the  English  commander  en- 
deavoured to  evade  the  conclusion  seems  to  me  destitute 
of  all  real  force.  Arnold,  he  said,  whatever  might  be  his 
faults,  was  undoubtedly  the  duly  constituted  commander 
at  Westpoint.  Everything  Andre  did  was  done  at  his 
invitation  or  under  his  direction.  As  general  he  had  a 
full  right  to  give  passes;  and  a  British  officer  who 
landed  under  a  flag  of  truce  which  he  had  given,1  who 
came  to  the  camp  at  his  request,  who  left  it  with  his 
pass,  and  who,  even  in  assuming  a  false  name,  was  only 
acting  by  his  direction,  could  not,  according  to  the 
general  custom  and  usage  of  nations,  be  treated  as  a 
spy.  The  obvious  answer  was  that  Arnold  was  at  this 
time  deliberately  plotting  the  destruction  of  the  Govern- 
ment which  employed  him,  and  that  no  acts  which  he 
performed  with  that  object  and  for  the  purpose  of  shel- 
tering an  active  colleague,  could  have  any  binding  force 


1  There    was    much    dispute  *  Vulture '  carried  a  passport  de- 

about  the  flag  of  truce.     Colonel  scribing  it  as  sailing  under  a  flag 

Robinson  wrote  from  the  '  Vul-  of  truce,  no  such  flag  appears  to 

ture  '  to  Washington  that  Andr6  have    been    actually    displayed, 

'went  up  with  a  flag  at  the  re-  The   landing  was   effected  with 

quest  of  General  Arnold.'   Arnold  profound  secrecy  and  in  the  dead 

himself  wrote  that   Andr6  was  of  night,  and  Andr6  very  impru- 

'  assuredly  under  the  protection  dently  admitted  on  his  trial  that 

of  a  flag  of  truce  sent  by  me  to  he  did  not  suppose  that  he  had 

him  for  the  purpose  of  a  conver-  landed  under  the  sanction  of  a 

sation  which  I  requested,'  and  flag.    See  The  Proceedings  of  the 

Clinton  laid  much  stress  on  the  Board  of  General  Officers  respect* 

same    defence.     On    the    other  ing  Major  Andr6. 
band,  although  the  boat  to  the 


416         ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,    en.  siv. 

as  against  the  Government  which  he  betrayed.  As  a 
matter  of  strict  right,  the  American  sentence  against 
Andre  appears  to  me  unassailable,  and  it  is  only  on 
grounds  of  mercy  and  magnanimity  that  it  can  be  ques- 
tioned. One  extremely  strong  palliating  circumstance 
might  be  adduced.  Andre  had  consented  to  an  inter- 
view with  Arnold  only  upon  a  distinct  understanding 
and  stipulation  that  he  was  not  to  enter  the  American 
lines.  General  Clinton  had  given  him  precise  orders 
that  he  was  not  to  do  so,  and  was  not  to  change  his 
uniform ;  and  Andre  asserted,  and  the  statement  seems 
never  to  have  been  questioned  or  doubted,  that  when 
Arnold  undertook  to  conduct  him  to  Smith's  house  he 
was  not  aware  that  it  was  within  the  American  lines, 
and  learned  it  for  the  first  time  when  they  were  chal- 
lenged by  the  American  sentinel  and  when  it  was  too 
late  to  recede.  This  fact  does,  as  it  seems  to  me,  materi- 
ally affect  the  question,  and  it  is  much  to  be  regretted 
that  it  did  not  induce  Washington,  at  least  to  grant  the 
request  of  Andre  that  he  might  die  the  death  of  a  soldier. 
The  English  could  also  allege  with  truth  that  on  their 
side  they  had  not  carried  military  law  to  its  full  severity. 
It  was  only  by  a  very  indulgent  interpretation  that 
General  Lee  could  escape  being  treated  as  a  deserter. 
The  forty  citizens  of  Charleston  who,  after  they  had 
given  their  parole  to  the  English,  had  corresponded  with 
the  enemy,  had  in  strict  justice  incurred  a  much  more 
terrible  penalty  than  a  short  banishment  to  Florida,  and 
Sir  Henry  Clinton  afterwards  stated  that  he  had  in 
several  cases  '  shown  the  most  humane  attention  to  the 
intercession  of  Washington  even  in  favour  of  avowed 
spies.'1  

1  See    the    narrative    drawn  History.      Lord    Stanhope    has 

up    by    Sir    Henry  Clinton,   in  stated  with  great  force  «,nd  per- 

the    appendix    to    the    seventh  spicuity  the  case  of  those  who 

volume     of     Lord     Stanhope's  consider  the  execution  of  Andr4 


en.  xiv.  EXECUTION  OF  ANDRfi.  417 

There  is,  however,  much  to  be  said  on  this  ground 
also  for  the  Americans.  As  I  have  already  observed, 
they  have  always  been  more  free  than  the  English  from 
explosions  of  sanguinary  fury,  but  the  moment  when 
the  army  was  thrilling  with  indignation  at  an  act  of 
treason  which  had  almost  led  to  its  complete  destruc- 
tion, was  scarcely  one  in  which  the  American  general 
could,  with  any  regard  to  the  public  sentiment,  abate 
anything  of  the  full  legal  punishment  of  the  chief  con- 
spirator with  the  traitor.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten 
that  Washington  was  as  yet  entirely  ignorant  of  the 
extent  of  the  plot.  His  first  exclamation  to  Lafayette, 
on  hearing  of  the  treason,  was,  *  Whom  then  can  we 
trust  ? '  and  there  was  great  reason  to  fear  that  it  might 
have  spread  among  other  leading  officers.  Was  this  a 
time  when  the  risks  of  treason  could  be  safely  dimi- 
nished, when  any  deterring  circumstance  in  the  just  and 
legal  punishment  of  traitors,  or  of  spies,  could  be  safely 
omitted?  Washington,  during  his  whole  life,  proved 
himself  an  eminently  humane,  as  well  as  an  eminently 
wise  man  ;  and  his  letters  appear  to  show  that  he  acted 
with  an  unclouded  mind,  and  on  a  deliberate  conviction 
of  the  necessity  of  the  case.1  It  has  been  said  that  the 
American  generals  were  usually  uneducated  men,  that 
their  opinion  on  a  difficult  question  of  military  law  was 

criminal.    Mr.  Sparks  has  given  as  he  was  more  unfortunate  than 

an  admirably  full  and  fair  ac-  criminal,  and  as  there  was  much 

count  of  the  whole  transaction  in  his  character  to  interest,  while 

in  his  Life  of  Arnold.  we  yielded  to  the  necessity  of 

1  These  are  the  words  in  which  rigour,  we  could  not  but  lament 

Washington  himself  announced  it.' — Washington's    Works,   vii. 

the    transaction  to  Count    Bo-  241.  'Andre,' he  wrote  to  Colonel 

chambeau  :    *  Your    Excellency  Laurens,  '  has  met  his  fate,  and 

will  have  heard  of  the  execution  with  that  fortitude  which  was  to 

of  the  British  Adjutant-General.  be    expected    from    an    accom- 

The  circumstances  under  which  plished  man  and  gallant  officer.* 

he  was  taken  justified  it,  and  — Ibid.  p.  256. 
policy  required  a  sacrifice ;  but 


418   ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  X;T. 

of  little  value,  and  that  tlie  English  proposal  to  submit 
the  matter  to  the  joint  decision  of  Kochambeau  and 
Knyphausen  ought  to  have  been  accepted.  But  the 
sentence  of  the  board  of  generals  which  condemned 
Andre  remains,  and  no  document  could  be  more  tem- 
perate or  better  reasoned.  The  Americans,  in  truth,  in 
this  very  trying  moment  showed  themselves  singularly 
free  from  sanguinary  passion ;  and  the  deep  compassion 
for  Andre  expressed  by  high  officers  in  the  American 
camp,  and  the  unvarying  humanity  and  respect  shown 
to  Mrs.  Arnold  and  her  child,  are  a  most  honourable 
proof  that  they  had  not  lost  the  power  of  judging  with 
equity  and  calm.1 

On  the  whole,  I  must  acknowledge  myself  unable  to 
subscribe  to  the  condemnation  which  many  English 
writers  have  passed  upon  the  conduct  of  Washington 
and  the  other  American  generals  in  this  matter.  The 
action  of  Washington,  indeed,  in  another  transaction 
connected  with  the  treason  of  Arnold,  which  has  re- 
ceived a  far  smaller  share  of  public  notice,  appears  to 
me  to  press  much  more  closely  upon  that  obscure  and 
wavering  line  which  separates  in  time  of  war  the  lawful 
from  the  treacherous.  A  plan  was  formed  in  the  Ameri- 
can camp  for  abducting  Arnold,  so  as  to  bring  him  into 
the  power  of  the  Americans.  It  was  proposed  that  an 
American,  pretending  to  be  a  deserter,  should  endeavour 
to  win  his  confidence  and  obtain  some  menial  position 
in  his  service,  and  that  some  night,  when  the  oppor- 

1  The  testimony  of  Alexander  died  universally  esteemed    and 

Hamilton,  who  saw  Andr6  during  universally  regretted.'  Hamilton 

his  last   days,  is  very  remark-  confesses,  however,  in  another 

able.     He  says  :  '  Never  perhaps  letter,  that  'the  refusing  him  the 

did  any  man  suffer  death  with  privilege  of  choosing  the  manner 

more  justice  or  deserve  it  less.'  of  his  death  will  be  branded  with 

'Among  the  extraordinary  cir-  too    much    obstinacy.' — Hamil- 

cumstances  that  attended  him,  ton's  Works,  i.  172-182,  187. 
in  the  midst  of  his  enemies  he 


CH.  xiv.  DECEPTIONS  OP   1780.  419 

tunity  served,  he  should,  with  the  assistance  of  a  con- 
federate in  the  English  camp,  seize  and  gag  the  general, 
and  drag  him  within  the  American  lines.  I  think  that 
most  admirers  of  Washington  will  regret  that  he  fully 
approved  of  this  plot,  and  gave  money  for  its  accomplish- 
ment, though  with  the  reservation  that  Arnold  must  not 
be  assassinated,  but  brought  in  alive.1  The  Americans 
were  so  anxious  to  obtain  possession  of  Arnold  that  they 
had  actually  made  the  strange  and  shocking  proposal 
that  the  English  should  surrender  him  as  a  price  for 
the  release  of  Andre.  It  was  a  proposal  to  which,  of 
course,  there  could  be  but  one  answer  among  honourable 


men.2 

There  had  been  great  hopes  in  America  that  the 
campaign  of  1780  would  prove  the  last,  and  that,  with 
the  powerful  assistance  of  France,  it  would  be  possible, 
and  even  easy,  in  that  year  to  annihilate  the  English 
army  on  the  Continent.  In  fact,  however,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  campaign  in  the  Southern  provinces,  in 
•which  the  balance  of  success  was  greatly  in  favour  of  the 
English,  the  year  in  America  was,  in  a  military  point 
of  view,  almost  uneventful.  The  combined  enterprises, 
indeed,  of  the  French  and  Americans  had  hitherto  been 
singularly  unsuccessful.  The  attack  on  Rhode  Island 
had  failed.  The  attack  on  Savannah  had  failed,  and  the 
expedition  against  New  York  had  been  abandoned.  The 
legion  of  the  Duke  of  Lauzun  was  stationed  in  Connecti- 
cut, but  all  the  other  French  troops  remained  in  Hhode 
Island,  where  their  chief  service  to  the  cause  was  the  pur- 
chase of  their  supplies  with  hard  coin,  which  helped  in 
some  considerable  degree  to  restore  the  exhausted  cur- 
rency of  specie.*  The  English  went  into  winter  quarters 

1  Washington's     Works,    vii.      269-273. 

645-547.  8  Hildreth,  iii.  330. 

2  Sparks's  Life  of  Arnold,  pp. 


ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  siv. 

at  New  York  and  its  dependencies,  and  the  Americana 
on  some  high  grounds  bordering  on  the  North  river. 
In  spite  of  the  forced  requisitions  of  food  which  the 
Americans  now  systematically  made,  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  situation  of  the  troops  who  were  supposed  to 
be  the  liberators  and  of  the  troops  who  were  supposed 
to  be  the  oppressors  of  America  continued  to  be  very 
mortifying.  '  While  our  army  is  experiencing  almost 
daily  want/  wrote  Washington,  *  that  of  the  enemy  in 
New  York  is  deriving  ample  supplies  from  a  trade  with 
the  adjacent  States  of  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Con- 
necticut, which  has  by  degrees  become  so  common  that 
it  is  hardly  thought  a  crime.'  The  readiness,  indeed,  of 
the  farmers  to  supply  the  English  with  everything  they 
could  want,  in  defiance  of  the  prohibitions  of  the  revo- 
lutionary conventions,  was  so  great  that  the  army  of 
Clinton  had  become  almost  independent  of  the  supplies 
that  were  sent  by  sea.1 

A  few  miscellaneous  American  matters  of  some  im- 
portance were  accomplished  during  this  year.  Congress, 
recognising  that  the  war  was  not  yet  over,  again  re- 


1  Washington's  Works,  vii.  ne  pensent  qu'a  leur  interet  per- 

286,  287.  When  the  Americans  sonnel.  .  .  .  Les  habitants  des 

had  gone  into  winter  quarters  cotes,  me'me  les  meilleurs  Whigs, 

Washington  wrote  to  General  apportent  a  la  flotte  Anglaise 

Greene :  '  I  have  been  driven  by  mouillee  dans  Gardiner's  Bay 

necessity  to  discharge  the  levies ;  des  provisions  de  toute  espece,  et 

want  of  clothing  rendered  them  cela  parcequ'on  les  paie  bien ;  ils 

unfit  for  duty,  and  want  of  flour  nous  ecorchent  impitoyablement. 

would  have  disbanded  the  whole  .  .  .  Dans  tous  les  marches  que 

army  if  I  had  not  adopted  this  nous  avons  conclus  avec  eux  ils 

expedient  for  the  relief  of  the  nous  ont  traites  plutot  comme 

soldiers  for  the  war.' — Ibid.  p.  321.  ennemis  que  comme  amis.  Ils 

'  L'esprit  de  patriotisme,'  wrote  sont  d'une  cupidite  sans  egale. 

Count  Fersen  at  this  time,  'ne  .  .  .  Je  parle  de  la  nation  en 

reside  que  chez  les  chefs  et  les  g6n£ral.  Je  crois  qu'elle  tient 

principaux  du  pays,  qui  font  de  plus  des  Hollandais  que  des 

tres-grands  sacrifices.  Les  autres  Anglais.' — Lettres  de  Comte  Fer- 

qui  f  orment  le  plus  grand  nombre  sen,  i.  51. 


cs.  X:Y.         MISCELLANEOUS   TRANSACTIONS,    1780.  421 

organised  the  army  on  a  plan  which  was  calculated  to 
produce  36,000  men,  though  in  truth  there  were  never 
half  that  number  in  the  field ;  and,  in  two  important 
respects,  the  urgent  representations  which  Washington 
had  for  several  years  been  making  were  at  length  at- 
tended to.  The  soldiers  were  to  be  enlisted  to  the  end 
of  the  war,  and  the  officers,  who  served  to  that  period, 
were  promised  half-pay  not  merely  for  seven  years,  as 
had  been  decided  in  1778,  but  for  life.1  The  first 
measure  had  become  less  difficult,  as  it  was  evident  that 
the  war  was  near  its  close.  The  second  measure,  which 
was  an  act  of  the  barest  justice  and  gratitude  to  men 
who  had  sacrificed  very  much  in  the  American  cause, 
was  carried  with  some  difficulty  in  the  face  of  the  oppo- 
sition of  Samuel  Adams.  A  considerable  exchange  of 
prisoners  was  made,  and  the  English  were  anxious  to 
release  in  this  way  the  old  troops  of  General  Burgoyne, 
who,  in  spite  of  the  Convention  of  Saratoga,  had  been  so 
long  and  so  dishonourably  detained.  The  Americans, 
however,  though  they  were  ready  to  exchange  the  officers, 
considered  the  detention  of  the  privates  favourable  to 
their  interests,  and  they  were  accordingly  kept  in 
captivity  till  the  end  of  the  war.2 

The  financial  difficulty  was,  as  always,  the  most 
pressing,  and,  when  it  became  certain  that  another 
campaign  must  be  undergone,  Washington  ventured  to 
say  little  more  than  that  the  cause  was  not  absolutely 
desperate.3  The  immense  issue  of  paper  money  in  1779 
had  made  it  almost  worthless,  and  intelligent  men  clearly 
saw  that  bankruptcy  could  not  long  be  averted.  The 
plan  of  calling  on  the  different  States  to  supply  the 
army  in  kind,  by  sending  fixed  quantities  of  provisions 
and  clothing,  was  largely  employed;  but,  as  we  have 

1  Hildreth,  iii.  324.  «  See   a    striking    passage  in 

8  Stedman,  iv.  254.  Washing-      Washington's  Works,  vii.  229. 
ton's  Works,  vii.  288. 


422    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CK.  xiv. 

seen,  it  was  far  from  successful,  and  it  gave  rise  to  an 
immense  amount  of  embezzlement.  Strenuous  efforts 
were  made  to  obtain  loans  in  Spain  and  in  Holland,  but 
very  little  could  in  this  year  be  obtained  from  Spain 
and  nothing  from  Holland.  France,  however,  though 
her  own  finances  could  ill  afford  it,  continued  steadily  to 
support  America,  and  her  assistance  was  as  indispensable 
in  finance  as  in  arms.  But  for  a  loan  of  four  millions 
of  livres  granted  by  France  in  this  year,  and  for  the 
large  sums  expended  by  her  army  in  America,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  how  the  contest  could  have  been  continued. 
At  the  end  of  1779,  Congress  issued  a  powerful 
address-  to  the  States,  in  which,  while  calling  for  new 
exertions,  it  endeavoured  to  dispel  all  fears  that  America 
would  not  ultimately  redeem  the  promises  of  its  paper 
money.  *  A  bankrupt,  faithless  republic  would  be  a 
novelty  in  the  political  world,  and  appear  among  respect- 
able nations  like  a  common  prostitute  amongst  chaste 
and  respectable  matrons.  The  pride  of  America  revolts 
from  the  idea ;  her  citizens  know  for  what  purposes  these 
emissions  were  made,  and  have  repeatedly  pledged  their 
faith  for  the  redemption  of  them.' l  Unfortunately,  in 
little  more  than  three  months  after  these  brave  words 
were  written,  the  apprehended  bankruptcy  came.  It 
took  the  form  of  a  Bill  calling  in  the  existing  continental 
paper  by  monthly  payments,  and  replacing  it  by  a  new 
issue  based  on  the  credit  of  the  States,  at  a  discount  of 
forty  dollars  of  the  old  emissions  for  one  of  the  new. 
This  new  paper  was  to  be  redeemed  in  specie  within 
six  years,  and  it  bore  interest  at  the  rate  of  five  per 
cent.  By  this  measure,  forty  dollars  of  the  continental 
currency  was  made  an  equivalent  for  one  dollar  in 
specie,  and  the  old  paper  currency  ceased  to  circulate.3 


1  Bolles,  pp.  86,  87  ;  Kamsay,          *  Bolles,  pp.  94,  135,  217-22tt 
ii.  129. 


en.  xiv.  FINANCIAL   TROUBLES,    1780.  423 

It  is  not  surprising  that  after  this  shock  to  public 
faith  the  new  issue  had  little  security,  though  more 
serious  efforts  than  in  former  years  were  now  made 
to  face  the  financial  difficulties.  Heavy  taxation  was 
imposed  by  the  different  States.  A  movement  began 
among  the  ladies  of  Philadelphia,  and  spread  through 
other  States,  of  collecting  or  making  clothes  for  the 
half-naked  soldiers,  and  a  bank  was  erected,  chiefly  by 
private  subscriptions,  for  the  purpose  of  helping  the 
Government.1  But  for  the  assistance  of  France,  how- 
ever, the  financial  condition  of  America  would  have 
been  desperate,  and,  in  spite  of  that  assistance,  it  was 
little  less.  The  expenses  were  cut  down  as  much  as 
possible.  A.  new  wave  of  ruin  swept  over  large  classes 
as  39-40ths  of  the  old  currency  were  simply  sponged 
out.  The  French  themselves  were  extremely  irritated 
by  a  measure  which  affected  the  many  French  creditors 
who  had  supplied  the  Americans  in  the  time  of  their 
deepest  need  with  articles  of  the  first  necessity,  and 
Vergennes  expressed  a  strong  opinion  that  foreigners 
ought  to  have  been  excepted  from  its  operation.2  The 
new  paper  soon  became  almost  worthless,  and  the  con- 
dition of  the  army  at  the  end  of  the  year  was  worse 
than  ever.  Hamilton,  whose  great  financial  genius  was 
now  becoming  apparent  in  American  politics,  wrote,  in 
December  1780,  from  Morristown,  where  the  army  was 
in  winter  quarters :  '  I  find  our  prospects  are  infinitely 
worse  than  they  have  been  at  any  period  of  the  war, 
and  unless  some  expedient  can  be  instantly  adopted,  a 
dissolution  of  the  army  for  want  of  subsistence  is  un- 
avoidable. A  part  of  it  has  been  again  several  days 
without  bread  ;  and  for  the  rest  we  have  not,  either  on 


1  See  on  these  different  mea-          2  See  Adams'  Works,  vii.  190- 
Biires  Bolles's  Financial  History      192. 
of  the  United  States. 
29 


ENGLAND   IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY,    en.  xiv. 

the  spot  or  within  reach,  a  supply  sufficient  for  four 
days.  Nor  does  this  deficiency  proceed  from  acci- 
dental circumstances,  as  has  been  the  case  on  former 
occasions,  but  from  the  absolute  emptiness  of  our 
magazines  everywhere,  and  the  total  want  of  money 
or  credit  to  replenish  them.' l  '  A  foreign  loan,'  wrote 
Washington  in  the  preceding  month, c  is  indispensably 
necessary  to  the  continuance  of  the  war.  Congress 
will  deceive  themselves  if  they  imagine  that  the 
army,  or  a  State  that  is  the  theatre  of  war,  can  rub 
through  a  second  campaign  as  the  last.  „  .  .  Ten 
months'  pay  is  now  due  to  the  army.  Every  depart- 
ment of  it  is  so  much  indebted,  that  we  have  not 
credit  for  a  single  express,  and  some  of  the  States 
are  harassed  and  oppressed  to  a  degree  beyond  bear- 
ing. To  depend,  under  these  circumstances,  upon 
the  resources  of  the  country,  unassisted  by  foreign 
loans,  will,  I  am  confident,  be  to  lean  upon  a  broken 
reed.' 2 

If  England  and  America  had  been  alone  engaged 
in  the  contest,  I  scarcely  think  that  any  impartial 
judge  can  doubt  that  the  Revolution  would  have  been 
subdued;  though,  if  the  American  people  had  ever 
been  animated  by  the  serious  and  general  desire  to 
detach  themselves  from  England,  it  would  have 
been  utterly  impossible  to  have  kept  them  perma- 
nently in  subjection.  England,  however,  was  now 


1  Quoted    by    Bolles,    pp.    99,  without  it  we  must  make  terms 
100.  with    Great   Britain.     This  must 

2  Washington's  Works,  vii.  300.  be  done  with  plainness  and  firm- 
In     the    same    spirit     Hamilton  ness,  but  with  respect  and  with- 
wrote  in  1780:  'As  to  a  foreign  out  petulance ;  not  as  a  menace, 
loan,    I    dare   say   Congress    are  but  as   a   candid  declaration   of 
doing  everything  in  their  power  our    circumstances.' — Hamilton's 
to  obtain  it.     The  most  effectual  Works,  i.  101. 

way  will  be  to  tell  France  that 


en.  xiv.  TENDENCIES    TOWARDS    PEACE.  425 

struggling  with  a  confederation  which  might  well 
have  beaten  the  strongest  Power  in  Europe  to  the 
dust. 

The  exhaustion  of  the  war  was  now  felt  very 
severely  by  all  the  belligerents  in  Europe,  and  several 
ineffectual  attempts  were  made  to  terminate  it,  or  at 
least  to  restrict  its  area,  and  to  modify  its  conditions. 
The  short  war  which  broke  out  in  Germany  in  1778, 
about  the  Bavarian  succession,  had  been  terminated 
by  .the  Peace  of  Teschen,  which  was  signed  on  May 
10,  1779,  and  immediately  after,  both  Austria  and 
Russia  mad«  a  serious  effort  to  mediate  between  the 
belligerent  Powers.  They  proposed  that,  in  order  to 
save  the  pride  of  England,  the  negotiations  with 
America  should  be  conducted  independently  of  those 
with  the  European  Powers,  but  on  the  understanding 
that  the  two  peaces  should  only  be  signed  conjointly, 
and  they  also  proposed  that  an  immediate  truce  should 
be  established ;  but  no  party  was  prepared  to  accept 
the  terms.  An  abortive  effort  was  made  by  England 
to  secure  the  alliance  of  Russia  by  promising  to  her 
Minorca  as  the  price  of  a  peace  based  upon  that  of 
1763,1  and  there  was  a  long  separate  negotiation  with 
Spain  which  failed  through  the  determination  of  the 
English  not  to  surrender  Gibraltar.2  The  acquisition 
of  this  fortress  was  the  main  object  for  which  Spain 
had  entered  into  the  war,  and  the  Spanish  ministers 
now  regretted  deeply  the  step  they  had  taken.  Mi- 
norca, Gibraltar,  and  Jamaica  were  still  in  the  hands 
of  the  English,  though  the  first  was  not  far  from  its 
fall.  The  capture  of  Florida  was  a  matter  of  com- 


1  Malmesbury  Papers,   i.    399-  Memoirs    of   Richard     Cumber- 
404.  land,  who  was  sent  to  Spain  to 

2  Adolphus,  iii.  187-195.     See,  negotiate  this  matter;  and  Flas- 
too,   the   second    volume   of  the  san,  Hist,  de  la  Diplomatic,  vi. 


426          ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTUKY.    en.  riv. 

paratively  small  moment,  and  the  independence  of 
America,  which  seemed  likely  to  be  the  chief  result 
of  the  war,  was  regarded  at  Madrid,  not  only  without 
enthusiasm,  but  with  positive  aversion,  as  a  grave 
danger  to  the  colonial  and  commercial  power  of 
Spain.  In  France,  public  opinion  had  greatly  cooled 
towards  America.  The  war  had  lasted  longer  than 
had  been  anticipated,  and  the  most  clear-sighted  of 
the  ministers  saw  plainly  that  it  was  sweeping  France 
rapidly  to  inevitable  bankruptcy.  Maurepas  openly 
expressed  his  anxiety  for  peace,  decker,  who  had 
at  all  times  opposed  the  war,  wrote  a  secret  letter  to 
Lord  North  on  December  1,  1780,  proposing  a  nego- 
tiation, and  an  immediate  truce,  leaving  the  belliger- 
ent Powers  in  America  in  possession  of  the  territory 
they  actually  held.  Yergennes  entirely  disavowed 
this  step,  but  he  also  was  sincerely  anxious  for  peace, 
if  it  could  be  honourably  obtained.  As  we  have  seen, 
he  was  greatly  disenchanted  with  the  Americans. 
He  complained  bitterly  that  the  whole  financial  bur- 
den of  supporting  them  was  thrown  upon  France, 
and  that  the  law  reducing  the  value  of  American 
paper  money  was  a  gross  fraud  upon  French  credi- 
tors ;  he  had  no  sympathy  with  American  aspirations 
for  the  conquest  of  Canada,  and  he  was  much  alarmed 
at  the  growing  power  of  Russia,  and  anxious  that 
England  should  not  be  so  reduced,  or  so  alienated,  as 
to  be  unable  or  unwilling  to  co-operate  with  France 
in  her  Eastern  policy. 

In  February  1780,  John  Adams  arrived  in  Paris 
with  instructions  to  negotiate  a  treaty  of  commerce 
with  Great  Britain  in  the  event  of  a  peace,  but  his 
relations  with  Yergennes  were  very  stormy.  Adams 
was  an  able  and  an  honest  man,  and  as  he  had  been 
commissioner  at  Paris  on  the  recall  of  Silas  Deane, 
he  was  not  quite  unaccustomed  to  European  ways, 


CH.  xiv.  PROPOSALS   FOR   PEACE.  427 

but  he  appears  to  have  been  singularly  wanting  in 
the  peculiar  tact  and  delicacy  required  in  a  diploma- 
tist. The  terms  in  which  he  complained  of  the  in- 
sufficiency of  the  French  expeditions  to  America,  the 
anxiety  which  he  showed,  at  a  time  when  America 
was  depending  almost  wholly  upon  French  assistance, 
to  represent  his  country  as  completely  the  equal  of 
France,  and  to  disclaim  all  idea  of  obligation,  and  the 
sturdy,  but  somewhat  pedantic,  republicanism  with 
which  he  thought  it  necessary  to  assure  the  minister 
of  one  of  the  most  despotic  sovereigns  in  Europe  that 
4  the  principle  that  the  people  have  a  right  to  a  form 
of  government  according  to  their  own  judgments  and 
inclinations  is  in  this  intelligent  age  so  well  agreed  on 
in  the  world,  that  it  would  be  thought  dishonourable 
by  mankind  in  general '  to  violate  it,1  made  the  worst 
possible  impression.  Vergennes  positively  refused  to 
hold  any  further  communications  with  any  American 
envoy  except  Franklin,  while  Franklin  himself  was 
only  able  to  smooth  the  troubled  waters  by  disavowing 
the  sentiments  of  his  colleague.  Yergennes  was  per- 
fectly determined  not  to  make  any  peace  apart  from 
America,  and  he  was  extremely  anxious  not  to  sever 
the  interests  of  America  from  those  of  France,  but  he 
feared  greatly  that  if  Adams  were  suffered  to  offer  a 
commercial  treaty,  a  separate  peace  might  be  made 
between  America  and  England,  and  that  the  latter 
Power  might  then  turn  her  undivided  strength  against 
her  European  enemies.  On  the  other  hand,  he  clearly 
recognised  that  a  speedy  peace  had  become  a  capital 
interest  to  France.  He  was  fully  resolved  not  to 
continue  the  war  for  the  purpose  of  extending  Ameri- 
can republicanism  to  Canada,  and,  provided  the  inde- 
pendence of  America  were  actually  established,  he 


1  American  Diplomatic  Correspondence,  v.  299. 


428         ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTUKY.    CH.  xiv. 

had  no  wish  to  oblige  England  to  make  any  recog- 
nition which  might  appear  to  her  a  humiliation.  The 
independence  of  Switzerland  and  Genoa,  he  said,  had 
never  been  formally  recognised  by  their  former  mas- 
ters, and  Spain  had  delayed  her  acknowledgment  of 
the  independence  of  Holland  till  long  after  it  had 
been  established  indisputably  as  a  fact.  These  pre- 
cedents he  thought  might  be  followed  in  America, 
and  he  favoured  the  idea  of  terminating  the  war  in 
that  quarter  by  a  truce  for  twenty  years,  or  for  a 
longer  term,  at  the  end  of  which  time  it  was  tolerably 
certain  that  the  war  would  not  be  resumed.  In  order 
to  carry  out  this  scheme  it  would  be  necessary  for  the 
English  to  surrender  New  York,  but  Yergennes  was 
prepared  to  leave  them  Georgia  and  South  Carolina. 
Such  proposals,  however,  found  no  favour  in  Amer- 
ica, while  in  England  they  were  encountered  by  the 
absolute  resistance  of  the  King.1 

Nothing,  indeed,  could  be  more  emphatic  than  the 
language  of  George  III.  during  these  negotiations, 
and  his  confidential  correspondence  with  Lord  North 
shows  clearly  how,  to  the  very  last  scene  of  the  very 
last  act  of  the  tragedy,  he  insisted  in  opposing  every 
concession,  even  some  of  those  which  the  American 
Commissioners  had  considered  themselves  authorised 
to  offer  in  1778.  He  was  determined  never  to  recog- 
nise the  independence  of  America,  never  to  admit  a 
compromise  under  which  that  independence  could  be- 
come a  real,  though  an  unrecognised  fact,  never  to 
enter  into  negotiation  with  France  and  Spain  about 
the  affairs  of  his  revolted  colonies.  He  was  supported 
by  his  unwavering  conviction  that  the  independence  of 


1  Bancroft,    x.  441-445.      Cir-       Trescot's  Diplomacy  of  the  Revo- 
court,    iii.    303-334.      American       lucion. 
Diplomatic  Correspondence,  iv.  v. 


CH.  xiv.  DETERMINATION    OF   THE    KING.  429 

America  would  be  the  death-warrant  of  English  great- 
ness, and  by  a  persuasion,  which  he  would  not  abandon 
even  in  the  very  last  moments  of  the  contest,  that 
England,  by  steady  perseverance,  had  it  yet  in  her 
power  to  bring  the  colonies  to  subjection.  'I  can 
never  suppose,7  he  wrote  in  the  March  of  1780,  '  this 
country  so  far  lost  to  all  ideas  of  self-importance  as  to 
be  willing  to  grant  America  independence.' 1  '  Every 
invitation  to  reconciliation,'  he  wrote  two  months 
later,  '  only  strengthens  the  demagogues  in  America 
in  their  arts  to  convince  the  deluded  people  that  a  lit- 
tle farther  resistance  must  make  the  mother  country 
yield ;  whilst  at  this  hour  every  account  of  the  dis- 
tresses of  that  country  shows  that  they  must  sue  for 
peace  this  summer  if  no  great  disaster  befalls  us.'2 
'  Whilst  America  is  only  to  be  treated  with  through 
the  medium  of  France,'  he  wrote  in  September, '  or  the 
strange  unauthorised  propositions  of  the  Commission- 
ers are  to  be  the  basis  of  any  arrangement  with  the 
rebellious  colonies,  I  cannot  give  my  sanction  to  any 
negotiation.'3  'The  giving  up  the  game  would  be 
total  ruin ;  a  small  state  may  certainly  subsist,  but  a 
great  one  mouldering  cannot  get  into  an  inferior  sta- 
tion, but  must  be  annihilated.  .  .  .  The  French  never 
could  stand  the  cold  of  Germany ;  that  of  America 
must  be  more  fatal  to  them.  America  is  distressed  to 
the  greatest  degree.  The  finances  of  France  as  well  as 
of  Spain  are  in  no  good  condition.' 4  '  Whilst  the  House 
if  Bourbon,'  he  added  in  October,  '  make  American 
independency  an  article  of  their  propositions,  no 
event  can  ever  make  me  be  a  sharer  in  such  a  nego- 
tiation.' 5 


1  Correspondence  of  George  III.  with  Lord  North,  ii.  310. 

2  Ibid.  p.  319.  3  Ibid.  p.  332. 
4  Ibid.  p.  336.  6  Ibid.  p.  338. 


430    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xiv. 

The  letter  of  decker  in  December  only  encour- 
aged the  King  in  these  sentiments,  for  he  inferred 
from  it  that  France  was  in  even  greater  difficulties 
than  he  had  imagined,  and  his  only  answer  to  the 
proposition  was  that  France  might  easily  obtain  peace 
by  desisting  from  encouraging  rebellion  and  aiming  at 
American  independence,  '  whether  under  its  apparent 
name,  or  a  truce,  which  is  the  same  in  reality.' l  But 
for  the  assistance  of  France,  he  urged,  the  contest 
must  still  end  in  the  return  of  the  colonies  to  the 
mother  country ; 2  and  as  late  as  the  beginning  of  No- 
vember 1781,  three  weeks  before  the  account  arrived 
of  the  surrender  of  Lord  Cornwallis,  the  language 
of  the  King  was  as  determined  as  ever.  '  I  feel  the 
justness  of  our  cause.  I  put  the  greatest  confidence 
in  the  valour  of  both  navy  and  army,  and  above  all, 
in  the  assistance  of  Divine  Providence.  ...  I  trust 
the  nation  is  equally  determined  with  myself  to  meet 
the  conclusion  with  firmness.  If  this  country  will 
persist,  I  think  an  honourable  termination  cannot 
fail.'3 

But  if  the  King  was  unchanged,  the  nation  at  last 
was  beginning  to  recognise  the  facts  of  the  situation. 
The  combination  of  France  and  Spain  against  Eng- 
land, and  the  humiliating  spectacle  of  a  foreign  fleet 
commanding  the  English  Channel,  had  for  the  first 
time  caused  the  country  gentry  to  waver,  and  had 
convinced  many  of  them  of  the  necessity  of  abandon- 
ing America.  The  Cabinet  was  well  known  to  be 
divided.  The  Bedford  party  were  peculiarly  restless ; 
negotiation  after  negotiation  was  made  to  strengthen 
the  Government  by  a  coalition,  and  the  abandonment 


1  Correspondence  of  George  III.  with  Lord  North)  ii.  345. 

2  Ibid.  p.  380.  3  Ibid.  p.  387. 


CH.  siv.    GROWING  STRENGTH  OF  THE  PEACE  PARTY.      431 

of  the  ministry  by  Lord  Gower,  in  the  autumn  of 
1779,  gave  a  considerable  shock  to  Tory  opinion.  The 
language  of  the  Opposition  grew  more  confident,  and 
for  the  first  time  they  began  to  enjoy  some  real  popu- 
larity.1 The  ground  which  they  very  judiciously  se- 
lected for  their  attack  was  the  enormous  and  corrupt 
expenditure  of  the  Government.  Before  the  Christ- 
mas recess  of  1779  the  subject  had  been  brought  for- 
ward in  the  Lords,  both  by  Richmond  and  Shelburne, 
while  Burke  in  the  Commons  had  identified  himself 
with  it,  and  promised  a  comprehensive  scheme  of 
reform  to  be  introduced  after  the  recess.  Parliament 
was  reminded  that  the  sea  and  land  forces  now 
amounted  to  little  less  than  300,000  men ;  that  the 
national  debt  would,  by  the  end  of  the  ensuing  year, 
have  increased  since  the  beginning  of  the  war  by  63 
millions,  and  risen  to  198  millions ;  that  in  spite  of  the 
unprecedented  magnitude  of  the  Civil  List  it  had  been 
largely  exceeded ;  and  that  the  tap-root  of  a  great 
portion  of  this  expenditure  was  a  desire  to  obtain  by 
corrupt  means  a  parliamentary  ascendency.  Queen 
Anne  had  a  Civil  List  300,OOOZ.  less  than  that  of 
George  III.,  yet  during  the  great  French  war  she  had 
allotted  100,OOOZ.  of  it  to  the  support  of  the  war. 
-N"ow,  however,  though  the  country  seemed  on  the 


1  As  late,  however,  as  Septera-  owing  to  a  consciousness  among 

bcr   16,  1779,  Camden   wrote  to  the  people  that  they  are  as  much 

the  Duke  of   Graf  ton:   'For   my  to   blame   as   the  ministers  .  .  . 

own  part  I  confess  fairly  my  own  or  whether  in  truth  they  hold  the 

opinion  that  the  opposition  to  the  opposition   so   cheap  as  to  think 

Court  is  contracted  to  a  handful  the  kingdom  would  suffer  instead 

of  men  within  the  walls  of  Parlia-  of  mending  by  the  exchange,  or 

ment,  and  that  the  people  with-  from  a  combination  of  all  these 

out  doors  are  either  indifferent  or  motives  .  .  .  the  fact  is  they  do 

hostile  to  any  opposition   at   all.  not   desire  a   change.' — Duke   of 

Whether  this  singular  and  unex-  Grafton's  Autobiography. 
arnpled   state   of  the  country  is 


432         ENGLAND  IN  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTUEY.    CH.  xiv. 

verge  of  economical  ruin,  the  tendency  to  useless  ex- 
penditure was  even  on  the  increase,  and  its  manifest 
object  was  the  corruption  of  Parliament.  The  enor- 
mous multiplication  of  Court  places,  of  sinecures,  of 
pensions  bestowed  on  members  of  Parliament,  the  ab- 
surd augmentation  of  the  salaries  of  minor  offices,  the 
contracts  which  had  been  issued  on  terms  exceedingly 
unfavourable  to  the  public,  and  had  been  distributed 
among  members  of  Parliament — all  these  things  were 
symptoms  of  a  deliberate  intention  to  falsify  the  voice 
of  the  nation,  to  govern  the  country,  under  the  forms 
of  law,  through  the  influence  of  the  Crown,  to  create 
in  Parliament  a  body  of  men  who  could  be  counted 
upon  to  support  any  administration  and  any  measure 
the  King  might  approve. 

If  the  question  depended  solely  on  the  wishes  of 
members  of  Parliament  it  would  soon  have  been 
stifled,  but  the  country  was  now  becoming  fully 
aroused.  Never,  perhaps,  since  the  convulsions  of 
the  Commonwealth  had  political  agitation  spread  so 
widely  through  England  as  in  the  recess  of  Parlia- 
ment of  1TY9  and  1780.  In  nearly  every  county 
great  meetings  were  held  for  the  purpose  of  drawing 
up  petitions.  Much  was  said  about  the  necessity  of 
obtaining  a  thorough  reform  of  Parliament,  and  much 
about  the  necessity  of  arresting  the  war  in  America, 
but  the  main  subject  of  complaint  was  the  corrupt  in- 
fluence in  Parliament.  The  agitation,  unlike  that  of 
the  Middlesex  election,  was  conducted  chiefly  by  the 
most  weighty  and  most  respectable  classes  of  the  com- 
munity. The  leading  country  gentry,  and  even  great 
numbers  of  the  clergy,  took  part  in  it,  and  in  most 
counties  it  was  supported  by  the  great  preponderance 
of  property.  The  counties  of  York  and  Middlesex, 
which  were  two  of  the  most  important,  and  at  the  same 
time  most  representative  constituencies  in  England,  led 


CH.  xiv.  PARLIAMENTARY   SESSION,   1780.  433 

the  way  by  earnest  petitions  calling  for  a  reduction  of 
expenditure  and  especially  of  sinecures  and  pensions; 
and  no  less  than  twenty-four  counties  and  several  con- 
siderable cities  passed  petitions  and  resolutions  on  the 
corrupt  influence  of  the  Crown.  A  few  counter- 
meetings  were  held,  and  strenuous  efforts  were  made 
by  the  partisans  of  the  Government  to  obtain  signa- 
tures to  protests,  but  on  the  whole  the  preponderance 
both  of  numbers,  property,  and  influence  was  decid- 
edly with  the  Opposition.  Committees  and  associa- 
tions for  agitating  the  question  were  in  many  places 
formed,  and  it  became  customary  at  these  meetings 
to  return  public  thanks  to  those  politicians  who 
had  attempted  to  prevent  or  arrest  the  American 
War.1 

The  session  which  ensued  showed  that  the  feeling 
of  the  country  had  made  a  great  impression  on  the 
members.  The  disciplined  majority  which  had  hith- 
erto steadily  supported  Lord  Korth  was  broken ;  the 
country  gentry  could  no  longer  be  counted  on,  and  it 
was  noticed  that  in  some  of  the  most  important  de- 
bates the  whole  stress  of  defending  the  Government 
was  thrown  upon  North  and  upon  the  Crown  lawyers. 
In  April  Dunning  succeeded  in  giving  the  most  seri- 
ous blow  which  had  yet  been  administered  to  the 
ministry  of  North,  and  to  the  system  of  Court  policy, 
by  carrying  by  a  majority  of  eighteen  his  famous 
resolution  '  that  the  influence  of  the  Crown  has  in- 
creased, is  increasing,  and  ought  to  be  diminished.'  Two 
other  resolutions  asserting  the  competency  of  the 
House  '  to  examine  into  and  correct  abuses  in  the  ex- 
penditure of  the  Civil  List  revenues,'  and  '  the  duty 
of  the  House  to  provide  immediate  and  effectual  re- 


1  Annual  Register,  1780,  pp.  85-1 


434         ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH    CENTUKY.    CH.  xiv. 

dress  of  the  abuses  complained  of  in  the  petitions '  of 
the  counties,  passed  without  divisions,  and  many  meas- 
ures were  proposed  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  these 
resolutions  into  effect.  The  vast  and  complex  scheme 
of  economical  reform  introduced  by  Burke  in  a 
speech  which  astonished  and  delighted  all  sides  of  the 
House,  from  its  eloquence,  its  knowledge,  and  its 
wisdom,  was  calculated  to  reduce  the  expenditure  by 
200,OOOZ.  a  year,  and  to  strike  off  no  less  than  thirty- 
nine  offices  held  by  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, as  well  as  eleven  held  by  members  of  the  House 
of  Lords.  North  did  not  venture  to  oppose  it  directly, 
and  it  passed  both  its  first  and  second  reading,  but 
was  ultimately  stifled  in  Committee.  The  divisions, 
however,  were  very  close  and  very  fluctuating.  Thus 
a  motion  of  Sir  G.  Savile  for  requiring  a  list  of  all 
pensions  was  only  defeated  by  a  majority  of  two. 
The  clause  of  Burke's  Bill  abolishing 'the  third  Sec- 
retary of  State  was  only  rejected  by  a  majority  of 
seven.  The  clause  abolishing  the  Board  of  Trade 
was  carried  against  the  Government  by  a  majority  of 
eight.  A  Bill  excluding  contractors  from  the  House 
of  Commons  passed  the  Commons,  but  was  rejected 
in  the  Lords. 

The  fatal  blow  came  from  America.  The  year  1781, 
which  at  last  gave  a  decisive  turn  to  the  "American 
"War,  began  under  circumstances  very  unfavourable  to 
the  American  cause,  for  it  opened  with  by  far  the  most 
formidable  mutiny  that  had  yet  appeared  in  the  Ameri- 
can army.  ~No  troops  in  that  army  had  shown  them- 
selves more  courageous,  more  patient,  and  more  devoted 
than  the  Pennsylvanian  line.  Its  privates  and  non- 
commissioned officers  consisted  chiefly  of  immigrants 
from  the  north  of  Ireland,  and  it  is  remarkable  that 
they  had  done  good  service  in  suppressing  the  mutiny 
of  Connecticut  troops  in  the  previous  year.  Their  pay, 


CH.  xiv.   REVOLT  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIAN  LINE.     435 

however,  was  a  whole  year  in  arrears.  ^  They  were  left 
nearly  naked  and  exceedingly  destitute  of  provisions, 
and  an  ambiguity  in  the  terms  of  their  enlistments  gave 
rise  to  a  fierce  dispute  with  their  officers.  The  soldiers 
had  been  enlisted  for  three  years  or  for  the  war,  and  the 
former  period  having  elapsed  they  contended  that  the 
choice  now  remained  with  them  of  staying  or  going; 
while  their  officers  maintained  that  they  were  bound  for 
the  longer  period.  Some  officers  were  killed  or  wounded 
in  attempting  to  suppress  the  mutiny,  and  the  non-com- 
missioned officers  and  privates,  numbering  about  1,300 
men,  left  the  camp  at  Morristown  with  their  firearms 
and  with  six  field-pieces,  and  marched  to  Princetown, 
apparently  with  the  intention  of  proceeding  to  Phila- 
delphia. General  Wayne,  who  commanded  at  Morris- 
town,  fearing  lest  they  should  plunder  the  inhabitants 
for  subsistence,  sent  provisions  after  them.  The  muti- 
neers kept  together  in  a  disciplined  body,  elected  their 
own  temporary  officers,  committed  no  depredations,  and 
proclaimed  their  full  loyalty  to  the  American  cause,  and 
their  readiness,  if  their  grievances  were  redressed,  to 
return  to  their  old  officers. 

In  the  weak  condition  of  the  American  forces  such 
a  body,  if  it  had  gone  over  to  the  English,  might  have 
turned  the  fortunes  of  the  war,  and  Washington  was 
for  some  time  in  extreme  alarm  lest  the  contagion 
should  spread  through  the  other  regiments.  Sir  Henry 
Clinton,  the  English  general,  sent  confidential  messen- 
gers to  the  revolted  troops,  and  endeavoured  by  large 
offers  to  win  them  to  his  side.  He  offered  a  complete 
amnesty  and  British  protection,  and  he  promised  to  pay 
all  the  arrears  due  to  them  from  Congress,  without 
exacting  any  military  service,  though  he  would  gladly 
accept  it  if  it  were  offered.  But  the  Pennsylvanian 
line  were  as  steadfast  as  ever  in  their  hostility  to  Eng- 
land, and  they  not  only  rejected  the  offers  that  were 


436         ENGLAND   IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.     CH.  xiv, 

made  to  them,  but  actually  arrested  the  English  emis- 
saries and  sent  them  prisoners  to  the  American  camp, 
where  they  were  tried  and  hanged  as  spies.  Congress 
at  once  opened  a  negotiation  with  the  revolted  troops, 
and  at  length  induced  them  to  lay  down  their  arms.  A 
general  amnesty,  a  certain  proportion  of  the  pay  which 
was  due  to  them,  and,  above  all,  the  discharge  of  those 
who  were  prepared  to  swear  that  they  had  only  been 
enlisted  for  three  years,  quelled  the  discontent,  and 
when  a  purse  of  100  guineas  was  offered  to  those  who 
had  delivered  up  the  British  emissaries  they  refused  to 
accept  it,  alleging  that  they  had  only  done  their  duty. 

The  mutiny  was  quelled  with  much  less  difficulty 
than  had  been  feared,  but  a  great  part  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vanian  troops  now  disappeared  from  the  American  army, 
and  a  dangerous  precedent  was  established  of  wronga 
redressed  by  revolt.  A  few  weeks  after  the  Pennsyl- 
vanian  outbreak,  some  of  the  New  Jersey  troops,  alleging 
very  similar  grievances,  broke  into  mutiny  and  com- 
mitted several  outrages.  They  were,  however,  much 
less  numerous,  and  Washington,  having  ascertained  that 
his  troops  could  be  counted  on,  acted  with  great  decision. 
The  mutineers  were  speedily  surrounded,  and  compelled 
to  surrender  at  discretion,  and  two  of  their  leaders  were 
executed. 

The  anxiety,  however,  caused  by  these  mutinies  was 
soon  in  a  great  measure  forgotten,  as  the  news  arrived 
of  a  very  brilliant  success  in  the  South.  It  had  become 
more  and  more  the  'policy  of  the  English  to  carry  the 
war  into  the  Southern  colonies,  where  a  great  proportion 
of  the  inhabitants  were  still  loyal  to  the  Crown.  They 
had,  as  we  have  seen,  completely  reduced  Georgia  in 
1779,  and  South  Carolina  in  1780,  but  they  had  hitherto 
altogether  failed  in  their  attempts  upon  North  Carolina, 
and  a  simultaneous  invasion  of  that  province  and  of 
Virginia  was  their  chief  plan  for  the  present  year.  In 


CH.  xiv.  WAR  IN  THE  SOUTH— COWPENS.  437 

December  1780  reinforcements  under  General  Leslie, 
amounting  to  about  2,000  men,  arrived  at  Charleston 
from  New  York,  and  Cornwallis,  without  waiting  for 
them  to  join  him,  moved  towards  the  frontier.  The 
American  forces  in  North  Carolina  were  commanded  by 
Greene,  who  had  superseded  Gates,  and  who,  as  I  have 
already  mentioned,  was  one  of  Washington's  most 
favourite  soldiers.  They  are  said  to  have  amounted  to 
little  more  than  2,000  men,  a  great  part  of  them  militia 
and  exceedingly  undisciplined.  Greene  hung  about  the 
frontier  between  the  two  provinces,  and  when  the  invasion 
became  imminent,  he  marched  with  the  main  body  of  his 
troops  in  the  direction  of  Camden,  but  sent  a  detach- 
ment under  Colonel  Morgan  to  make  a  diversion  in  South 
Carolina  in  a  country  called  the  district  of  Ninety-six. 
Morgan  started  with  only  540  continental  soldiers,  but 
he  was  soon  after  joined  by  400  or  500  militia,  and 
about  200  came  to  him  in  South  Carolina  itself. 

It  was  necessary  that  this  force  should  be  anni- 
hilated or  expelled  before  the  projected  invasion  of 
North  Carolina  could  take  place,  and  Cornwallis  ac- 
cordingly despatched  his  light  troops,  amounting  to 
1,000  or  1,100  men,  a  large  proportion  of  them  being 
cavalry,  accompanied  by  two  field-guns,  to  accomplish 
this  object.  The  force  was  under  the  command  of 
Colonel  Tarleton,  and  it  seemed  amply  sufficient  for  the 
purpose.  Morgan  fled  precipitately — so  precipitately 
that  on  one  occasion  the  half-cooked  dinners  of  his 
troops  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  English ;  but  finding 
the  English  gaining  on  him,  he  at  length  resolved  to 
meet  them  at  a  place  called  Cowpens,  about  three  miles 
from  the  frontier  of  the  province.  The  battle  was  fought 
on  January  17,  1781.  The  English  most  imprudently 
attacked  when  they  were  fatigued  by  a  five  hours'  march 
through  a  difficult  and  swampy  country,  and  the  Ameri- 
cans had,  of  course,  the  choice  of  ground,  though  it  doea 


438         ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY.     CH.  xrv. 

not  appear  to  have  given  them  any  great  advantage.1 
On  the  other  hand,  the  English  seem  to  have  been 
numerically  at  least  equal  to  their  enemies.  They  were 
all  regular  troops  encountering  an  army  of  which  more 
than  half  was  militia,  and  they  were  supported  by  two 
cannon.  Yet  in  spite  of  all  these  advantages  they  suf- 
fered an  utter  and  ignominious  defeat.  A  more  than 
commonly  deadly  volley  from  the  American  line,  a 
desperate  bayonet  charge,  a  sudden  panic,  and  a  failure 
on  the  part  of  Tarleton  to  bring  up  the  reserves  at  the 
proper  moment,  seem  to  have  been  the  chief  incidents  of 
the  affair.  The  two  English  cannon  were  taken.  More 
than  600  men  were  either  captured,  wounded,  or  killed, 
and  the  English  army  was  thus  deprived  of  the  greater 
part  of  its  light  troops  at  a  time  when,  from  the  nature 
of  the  campaign,  such  troops  were  especially  needed. 

The  disaster  was  completely  unexpected  by  Corn- 
wallis,  but  he  did  everything  in  his  power  to  repair  it. 
Burning  a  great  part  of  bis  baggage  in  order  that  he 
might  move  more  quickly,  he  pursued  Morgan  and 
Greene  into  North  Carolina,  in  hopes  of  regaining  the 
prisoners  that  had  been  taken.  Twice  the  Americans 
were  only  saved  by  the  sudden  rising  of  rivers,  and  on 
one  occasion  they  marched  no  less  than  forty  miles  in  a 
single  day.  It  is  said  that  the  bloody  marks  of  their 
bare  and  torn  feet  might  be  traced  along  the  frozen 
ground.  They  succeeded,  however,  in  escaping  into 
Virginia,  and  North  Carolina  being  for  a  short  time  in 
the  possession  of  the  English,  several  hundreds  of 
loyalists  nocked  to  the  British  standard.  Greene,  how- 
ever, with  large  reinforcements  from  Virginia,  again 
entered  the  province,  and  although  he  could  not  expel 

1  See   Stedman,    ii.    321-325.  accounts  in  Bancroft  and  in  the 

This  writer  is  especially  valuable  Cornwallis     Correspondence,    i 

for  the  Carolina  campaigns,  as  he  81-83. 
was  himself  present.  See,  too,  the 


CK.  XIT.  WAR  IN  NORTH  CAROLINA.  439 

the  English,  he  gave  a  terrible  blow  to  the  loyalist 
movement.  A  party  of  between  200  and  300  loyalists 
encountered  some  of  the  American  troops,  and  having 
mistaken  them  for  English,  they  suffered  themselves  to 
be  surrounded.  They  speedily  demanded  quarter,  but 
none  was  given,  and  the  whole  body  were  cut  to  pieces. 
A  similarly  savage  spirit  seems  to  have  been  generally 
displayed  in  this  province  whenever  the  loyalists  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  Americans,  and  it  added  greatly  to 
the  ferocity  of  the  struggle.  Cornwallis,  who  was  a  very 
truthful  man,  speaks  of  *  the  shocking  tortures  and  in- 
human murders  which  are  every  day  committed  by  the 
enemy,  not  only  on  those  who  have  taken  part  with  us, 
but  on  many  who  refuse  to  join  them.' 1  The  predomi- 
nant sentiment  of  the  province  appears  to  have  been 
originally  on  the  side  of  the  Government,  and  it  probably 
still  was  so ;  but  the  loyalist  party  had  been  broken, 
scattered,  or  discouraged  by  premature  insurrections, 
ruthlessly  suppressed.  Many  were  forced  by  the  most 
savage  persecutions  to  take  arms  for  the  Americans ;  and 
the  consciousness  that  in  the  very  probable  event  of  the 
English  being  unable  to  hold  the  province,  no  quarter 
could  be  expected  by  loyalists,  greatly  checked  enlist- 
ments. On  March  15,  Cornwallis  encountered  and 
completely  defeated  Greene,  near  Guilford,  although  the 
Americans  had  a  great  advantage  both  in  numbers  and 
position,  but  the  victory  was  purchased  by  heavy  losses, 
and  it  led  to  no  important  result.  The  extreme  diffi- 
culty of  obtaining  provisions,  the  impossibility  of  occu- 
pying a  vast  country  with  no  point  in  it  that  could 
command  the  rest,  the  want  of  boats  for  navigating  the 
innumerable  rivers  and  creeks  that  intersected  the  pro- 
vince, and  the  prevailing  terror  which  prevented  the 
loyalists  from  taking  arms,  obliged  Cornwallis  to  retire, 

1  Cornwallis  Correspondence,  i.  73. 


440        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     CH.  x:v. 

and  in  April  he  passed  into  Virginia,  leaving  a  small 
force  under  Lord  Rawdon  to  protect  English  interests 
in  South  Carolina. 

Much  confused  and  desultory  fighting  went  on  in 
that  province,  and  there  was  a  Ravage  civil  war  be- 
tween the  Whigs  and  Tories;  but,  on  the  whole,  the 
result  was  unfavourable  to  the  English,  for  at  the 
end  of  the  campaign  they  held  nothing  in  the  Caro- 
linas  except  the  country  immediately  round  Charles- 
ton.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  tolerably  certain  that  in 
all  the  States  south  of  Virginia  the  active  sympathisers 
with  the  Kevolution  were  but  a  small  minority,  though 
they  had  succeeded  in  imposing  on  the  peaceful  inhabit- 
ants what  Cornwallis  termed  l  the  most  oppressive  and 
cruel  tyranny  that  ever  was  exercised  over  any  country/ 
It  is  probably  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  news  of 
the  capture  of  Washington  and  Greene  and  of  the  total 
subjugation  of  the  rebellion  would  have  been  received 
with  genuine  pleasure  by  the  bulk  of  the  population  of 
the  Caroliiias,  of  Georgia,  and  of  Maryland.1 

1  In  a  letter  to  Eeed  from  the  fond  of  pleasure  that  they  have 
camp  near  Camden,  May  4,  1781,  but  little  relish  for  the  rugged 
General  Greene  gives  a  very  con-  business  of  war.  .  .  .  The  Whigs 
fidential  account  of  the  state  will  do  nothing  unless  the  Tories 
of  the  Southern  provinces.  He  are  made  to  do  equal  duty,  and 
says :  *  The  majority  is  greatly  this  cannot  be  effected,  as  the 
in  favour  of  the  enemy's  interest  Tories  are  the  stronger  party ;  so 
now,  as  great  numbers  of  the  neither  aid  the  army.  .  .  .  Mary- 
Whigs  have  left  the  country.  land  has  given  no  assistance  to 
.  .  .  The  enemy  have  got  a  much  this  army ;  not  a  man  has  joined 
firmer  hold  in  South  Carolina  us  from  that  State.  ...  If  our 
and  Georgia  than  is  generally  good  ally  the  French  cannot 
believed.  .  .  .  North  Carolina  did  afford  assistance  to  these  South- 
nothing  at  all  until  she  saw  that  ern  States,  in  my  opinion  there 
we  would  not  let  the  enemy  will  be  no  opposition  on  this  side 
possess  the  State  quietly.  There  Virginia,  before  fall.'— Life  of 
are  a  good  many  Whigs  in  the  Joseph  Reed,  ii.  351-353.  On 
State,  but  I  verily  believe  the  the  atrocities  perpetrated  on  the 
Tories  are  much  the  most  loyalists,  see  the  Cornwallia 
numerous,  and  the  Whigs  are  so  Correspondence,  i.  54,  70,  84. 


CE.  xiv.  ARNOLD   IN   VIRGINIA.  441 

Almost  immediately  after  the  despatch  of  Leslie 
from  New  York,  another  force  of  about  1,600  men  was 
sent  from  the  same  quarter  into  Virginia  under  the 
command  of  Arnold,  who  was  now  a  brigadier-general 
in  the  British  army,  and  who  was  burning  to  distinguish 
himself  against  his  former  friends.  The  objects  of  the 
English  were  to  destroy  the  American  stores  in  Virginia, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  create  a  diversion  in  favour  of 
the  forces  that  were  operating  in  the  Carolinas.  Some, 
small  armed  vessels  sailed  up  the  Chesapeake  to  co- 
operate with  the  invaders,  who  entered  Kichmond  on 
January  7,  1781,  destroyed  great  quantities  of  tobacco 
and  other  stores,  and  spread  their  devastations  over  a 
wide  area.  They  met  with  scarcely  any  opposition,  for 
the  bulk  of  the  Virginia  militia  had  been  sent  to  the 
army  of  Greene,  and  although  Steuben  was  in  Virginia 
at  the  head  of  a  few  troops  they  were  much  too  few  for 
serious  resistance.  An  earnest  attempt,  however,  was 
made  to  cut  off  the  communications  of  Arnold.  A  con- 
siderable French  fleet  lay  at  Newport  in  Rhode  Island, 
but  it  was  blockaded,  or  at  least  watched,  by  a  stronger 
English  fleet.  On  January  22,  however,  a  furious  storm 
greatly  injured  the  British  fleet,  and  although  the 
French  admiral  did  not  venture  to  attack  it,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  sending  three  ships  of  war  from  his  own  fleet 
to  the  Chesapeake,  for  the  purpose  of  blocking  up 
Arnold's  little  squadron,  and  cutting  off  the  English 
communication  by  water.1  The  enterprise  was  so  far 
successful  that  Arnold  found  it  necessary  to  retire  to 
Portsmouth,  where  he  entrenched  himself  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  French  ships,  which  made  a  few  prizes  and 
returned  safely  to  Newport. 

Washington  viewed  with  much  alarm  the  presence 
of  this  daring  soldier  in  Virginia,  and  he  determined, 

1  Washington's  Works,  vii.  403,  404. 


442        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.     c>   XTT. 

with  the  assistance  of  the  French,  to  make  a  serious 
effort  to  capture  or  annihilate  his  whole  force.  Lafayette 
was  placed  at  the  head  of  1,200  men,  drawn  from,  the 
New  England  and  New  Jersey  lines,  and  was  directed 
to  attempt  the  capture,  while  the  French  fleet,  carrying 
some  1,100  French  soldiers,  succeeded  in  sailing  from 
Newport  to  the  Chesapeake,  in  order  to  co-operate  with 
him.  The  enterprise  appeared  very  promising ;  and 
success,  in  addition  to  its  great  military  and  political 
importance,  would  have  been  extremely  gratifying  to 
the  vindictive  feelings  of  the  Americans.  Jefferson,  the 
Governor  of  Virginia,  offered  a  reward  of  5,000  guineas 
for  the  capture  of  Arnold.  Washington  instructed  La- 
fayette to  execute  the  traitor  ignominiously  if  he  was 
taken,  and  he  greatly  applauded  Lafayette's  refusal  to 
accept  a  letter  from  him  when  Arnold  for  a  short  time 
was  commanding  the  British.1  But  the  fatality  which 
had  as  yet  invariably  hung  over  the  combined  operations 
of  the  French  and  Americans  still  continued.  The 
French  were  not  sufficiently  prompt  in  availing  them- 
selves of  the  moments  when  several  of  the  English  ships 
were  disabled  by  the  storm.  The  English  fleet  followed 
them  to  the  Chesapeake,  defeated  them,  compelled  them 
to  return  to  Newport,  and,  by  establishing  communica- 
tions with  Arnold,  secured  his  position ;  and,  under  the 
protection  of  the  British  fleet,  2,000  English  soldiers, 
commanded  by  General  Phillips,  arrived  in  the  Chesa- 
peake on  March  26,  1781,  to  make  Virginia  the  chief 
theatre  of  the  war. 

It  is  somewhat  remarkable  how  very  little  at  this 
time  was  done  by  Washington  himself.  His  eminent 
wisdom  in  counsel  and  administration  was  never  more 
apparent  than  in  the  latter  period  of  the  war  ;  but  his 
great  military  reputation  appears  to  me  to  rest  almost 

1  Washington's  Works,  vii.  419 ;  viii.  6,  7.    Memoires  de  Lafayette. 


CH.  xiv.      AMERICAN   DESIGNS   AGAINST   NEW   YORK.         443 

entirely  on  his  earlier  campaigns.  He  refused  to  take 
command  of  the  forces  in  Virginia,  being  extremely 
anxious  to  effect  another  enterprise  which  would,  as  he 
believed,  terminate  the  war.  This  enterprise  was  the 
capture  of  New  York,  which  was  left  very  weak  by  the 
large  detachments  that  had  been  successively  sent  to 
the  Southern  States.  For  this,  however,  as  for  almost 
everything  else,  the  Americans  were  absolutely  de- 
pendent on  the  co-operation  of  the  French,  who  do  not 
appear  to  have  looked  with  much  favour  on  the  proposal.1 
In  February,  1781,  Washington  agreed  with  Count 
Kochambeau  that  it  might  be  successfully  carried  out  if 
the  French  could  attain  a  naval  superiority  in  America, 
and  if  the  joint  French  and  American  army  numbered 
30,000  men,  or  double  the  force  of  the  enemy  in  new 
York  and  its  dependencies.2  In  April  the  English 
forces  at  New  York  had  been  lowered  by  successive 
detachments  to  about  7,000  regular  troops^3  In  the 
middle  of  May  a  new  detachment  of  from  1,500  to  2,000 
men  left  New  York  for  Virginia,4  and  at  the  end  of  that 
month  Washington  expressed  himself  ready  to  make  the 
attempt,  if  the  battalions  from  New  Hampshire  to  New 
Jersey  inclusive,  which  were ( still  considerably  deficient/ 
were  completed,  and  if  he  could  obtain  the  assistance  of 
4,000  French  soldiers.5 

The  condition  of  the  war,  however,  was  at  this  time 
very  singular,  for  while  it  was  quite  evident  that  it  had 
come  to  its  last  stage,  it  was  still  curiously  uncertain  in 
what  way  it  would  terminate.  The  whole  English  army 
in  America  was  so  small,  so  scattered,  so  imperfectly 
supported  by  the  inhabitants,  and  situated  in  districts 
where  supplies  were  so  difficult  to  obtain,  that  a  great 


1  Washington's  Works ,viii.24.          *  Ibid.  p.  63. 

*  Ibid.  viii.  25.  •  Ibid.  p.  65. 

•  Ibid.  vii.  407. 


4:4:4:        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY,     ca.  irr. 

part  of  it  would  be  inevitably  compelled  to  surrender  if 
the  Americans  could  obtain  a  very  small  reinforcement 
of  regular  French  troops,  and,  above  all,  if  the  French 
could  attain  a  naval  supremacy  sufficiently  decisive  to 
cut  off  communications.  Already  the  French  navy  on 
the  coasts  equalled  the  English  in  numbers,  and  it  was 
only  by  better  seamanship  that  the  victory  off  the 
Chesapeake  had  been  won.  With  France,  Spain,  and 
Holland  in  arms  against  her,  with  India  in  a  blaze  of 
war,  and  with  the  northern  Powers  formed  into  a 
menacing,  if  not  hostile  league,  it  seemed  scarcely 
possible  that  England  should  be  able  to  reinforce  either 
her  army  or  her  navy  to  such  an  extent  as  to  turn  the 
fortunes  of  the  war,  and  although  there  were  many 
loyalists  in  America,  it  had  become  quite  evident  that 
these  could  not  be  relied  on  to  suppress  the  rebellion. 
On  the  other  hand,  America  was  in  the  very  last  stage 
of  exhaustion  and  decrepitude,  and  she  depended  for 
everything  on  her  ally.  The  first  condition  of  success 
was  a  naval  supremacy,  but  this  rested  entirely  with 
France.  Nearly  every  ship  of  war  the  Americans 
possessed  had  by  this  time  been  captured  or  sunk.1  On 
land  it  was  abundantly  proved  that  the  English  could 
neither  be  driven  from  South  Carolina  nor  from  Virginia, 
nor  from  New  York,  without  the  assistance  of  French 
soldiers,  and  the  American  army  itself  was  only  held 
together  by  the  constant  support  and  assistance  of 
France.  The  Americans  were  compelled  to  appeal  to 
her  for  gunpowder,  for  cannon,  for  small  arms  and  most 
military  munitions,  for  clothes,  for  pay,2  and  every  delay 
in  French  supplies  left  them  in  a  state  of  the  most 
miserable  destitution.  General  Greene  described  his 
army  in  the  Carolinas  in  the  midst  of  winter  as  *  lite- 


1  Hildreth,  iii.  404. 

*  Washington's  Works,  vii.  407  ;  viii.  44. 


CH.   KIT. 


1781.  44:5 


rally  naked.' l  Lafayette  was  only  able  to  provide  his 
troops  in  Virginia  with  shirts,  and  shoes,  and  hats,  by 
pledging  his  private  fortune,  and  in  the  course  of  the 
war  he  spent  in  the  American  cause  not  only  his  large 
annual  income  but  also  700,000  francs  of  his  capital.2 
*  There  is  not,'  wrote  the  American  General  Clinton 
from  Albany  in  April,  *  (independent  of  Fort  Schuyler,) 
three  days'  provision  in  the  whole  department.' 3  Some 
of  the  troops  had  been  unpaid  for  nearly  sixteen  months. 
Some  of  the  most  considerable  battalions  were  dwindling 
by  desertion  into  mere  skeletons,  and  Washington  com- 
plained that  he  could  scarcely  'provide  a  garrison  for 
Westpoint  or  feed  the  men  that  are  there.'4  'From 
the  post  of  Saratoga  to  that  of  Dobbs'  Ferry,'  he  wrote 
in  May,  *  I  believe  there  is  not  at  this  moment  one  day's 
supply  of  meat  for  the  army  on  hand.  .  .  .  Unless  a 
capital  change  takes  place  soon,  it  will  be  impossible 
for  me  to  maintain  our  posts,  and  keep  the  army  from 
dispersing.' 5  '  All  the  business  of  transportation,  or  a 
great  part  of  it,  being  done  by  military  impress,  we  are 
daily  and  hourly  oppressing  the  people,  souring  their 
tempers,  and  alienating  their  affections.  .  .  .  Scarce 
any  State  in  the  Union  has  at  this  hour  an  eighth  part 
of  its  quota  in  the  field.  .  .  .  Instead  of  having  the 
prospect  of  a  glorious  offensive  campaign  before  us,  we 
have  a  bewildered  and  gloomy  defensive  one,  unless  we 
should  receive  a  powerful  aid  of  ships,  land  troops,  and 
money  from  our  generous  allies.' 6 

The  bankruptcy  of  last  year  had  almost  completed 

1  Washington's  TFbr/<;s,vii.355.  1781,  Count  Fersen  wrote  : — «Ce 

2  Memoires    de    Lafayette,   i.  pays-ci    n'est    pas    en    etat  de 
183,  297.  Boutenir  une  guerre  plus  longue. 

3  Katnsay,  ii.  222.  II  est  ruine,  plus  d'argent,  plus 

4  Washington's     Works,    vii.  d'hommes;  si  la  France  ne  les 
463  ;  viii.  3,  22,  23.  secourtvigoureusement,ilsseront 

5  Ibid.  viii.  36,  38,  39.  obliges  de  faire  la  paiiL'—Lettre* 
•  Ibid.  31,  32.    So  in    April       du  Comte  de  Fersen,  i.  52,  53. 


446   ENGLAND  IN"  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


CH.    XIT. 


the  ruin,  and  Laurens  was  sent  to  France  with  the  most 
urgent  entreaties  for  a  new  loan.  *  Be  assured,  my  dear 
Laurens/  wrote  Washington,  '  day  does  not  follow  night 
more  certainly  than  it  brings  with  it  some  additional 
proof  of  the  impracticability  of  carrying  on  the  war  without 
the  aids  you  are  directed  to  solicit.  As  an  honest  and 
candid  man,  as  a  man  whose  all  depends  on  the  final  and 
happy  termination  of  the  present  contest,  I  assert  this, 
while  I  give  it  decisively  as  my  opinion  that  without  a 
foreign  loan  our  present  force,  which  is  but  the  remnant 
of  an  army,  cannot  be  kept  together  this  campaign ; 
much  less  will  it  be  increased  and  in  readiness  for 
another.  ...  If  France  delays  a  timely  and  powerful 
aid  in  the  critical  posture  of  our  affairs,  it  will  avail  us 
nothing  should  she  attempt  it  hereafter.  .  .  .  We  can- 
not transport  the  provisions  from  the  States  in  which 
they  are  assessed,  to  the  army,  because  we  cannot  pay 
the  teamsters,  who  will  no  longer  work  for  certificates. 
....  Our  troops  are  approaching  fast  to  nakedness,  and 
we  have  nothing  to  clothe  them  with ;  our  hospitals  are 
without  medicines,  and  our  sick  without  nutriment  ex- 
cept such  as  well  men  eat.  ...  In  a  word,  we  are  at 
the  end  of  our  tether,  and  now  or  never  our  deliverance 
must  come.  ...  If  it  could  be  made  to  comport  with 
the  general  plan  of  the  war  to  keep  a  superior  fleet 
always  in  these  seas,  and  France  would  put  us  in  a  con- 
dition to  be  active  by  advancing  us  money,  the  ruin  of 
the  enemy's  schemes  would  then  be  certain.' l  *  Our 
present  situation/  lie  wrote  emphatically  to  Franklin, 
4  makes  one  of  two  things  essential  to  us ;  a  peace,  or 
the  most  vigorous  aid  of  our  allies,  particularly  in  the 
article  of  money.' 2 

If  this  language  be  true,  it  is  evident  that  even  at 


1  Washington's  Works,  viii.  7,          2  American    Diplomatic   Cor* 
8.    See,  too,  vii.  370,  371.  respondent,  iii.  188. 


CH.  xiv.  NEW  FRENCH  LOAN.  447 

the  last  stage  of  the  war  it  was  possible  that  the  inde- 
pendence of  America  might  have  collapsed.  Nor  were 
the  counsels  of  France  by  any  means  unanimous.  Even 
Vergennes  was  dismayed  at  the  constant  demands  of 
America,1  sceptical  about  her  necessities,  irritated  at  the 
tone  which  had  recently  been  adopted  by  Adams,  still 
more  irritated  by  the  manifest  approval  of  that  tone 
by  the  popular  politicians  in  America.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  Franklin  and  Washington,  he  appears  to  have 
had  very  little  confidence  in  American  public  men ;  and 
he  believed,  not  wholly  without  reason,  that  much  of  the 
distress  which  was  described  was  due  to  the  want  of 
unity  and  patriotism  of  the  Americans  themselves,  and 
especially  to  the  fact  that  the  Congress  had  no  co- 
ercive powers  over  the  several  States.  Lafayette,  how- 
ever, strongly  supported  the  representations  of  Franklin, 
and  the  French  minister  at  length  resolved  upon  an  act 
of  generosity  which  was  sufficient  to  enable  the  Americans 
to  continue  the  war.  Besides  a  loan  of  four  millions  of 
livres  to  take  up  bills  already  drawn  upon  Franklin,  the 
French  King  granted  six  millions  of  livres  as  a  free  gift, 
and  also  agreed  to  guarantee  in  Holland  an  American 
loan  to  the  amount  of  ten  millions  more. 

This  timely  assistance  was  of  vital  importance. 
Vergennes,  indeed,  declared  that  it  must  be  the  last, 
and  he  complained  bitterly  that  Laurens  rather  exacted 
than  demanded  help ;  that  he  was  so  displeased  at  not 
obtaining  all  he  wanted  that  he  treated  the  French 
ministers  in  a  manner  bordering  upon  insolence,  and 
that  they  had  wholly  failed  in  awakening  in  him  any 
sentiment  of  gratitude.2 

We  must  now  return  to  the  fortunes  of  the  war  in 


1  See  Washington's  Works,  vii.          2  See  the  letters  of  Vergennea 

175,   176,   379,   380.    American  in  Washington's  Works,  viii.  525, 

Diplomatic   Correspondence,  ix.  528. 
199  scg. 


4AS    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xiv. 

Virginia.  When  General  Phillips  arrived  in  that  pro- 
vince towards  the  close  of  March  1781  with  2,000  men 
from  New  York,  he  assumed  the  command  of  all  British 
forces  in  Virginia  by  virtue  of  his  seniority  to  Arnold. 
Lafayette  was  hastily  recalled  to  the  province  from 
Maryland,  and  he  was  joined  by  some  Virginian  militia 
under  Steuben,  but  their  joint  force  was  entirely  un- 
able to  oppose,  or  even  very  seriously  to  molest,  the 
English,  who  made  it  their  policy  to  destroy  all  stores, 
and  break  up  all  centres  of  resistance  over  a  large  area. 
Virginia  had  furnished  the  chief  materials  for  resist- 
ance to  the  English  in  the  Carolinas.  It  was  one 
of  the  provinces  where  the  popular  sentiment  was 
most  hostile  to  them,  and  it  was  so  important  from  its 
size,  wealth,  and  geographical  position  that  its  com- 
plete reduction  might  almost  terminate  the  struggle, 
or  at  least  make  British  influence  supreme  in  the 
Southern  colonies.  It  was  plain  that,  if  the  contest 
ended  in  favour  of  the  English,  it  would  be  by  the 
complete  exhaustion  of  the  Americans,  and  by  carry- 
ing a  war  of  devastation  into  Virginia  this  end  was 
most  likely  to  be  attained.  The  easy  navigation  of  the 
river  James  and  its  dependencies  greatly  facilitated  the 
efforts  of  the  British,  and  they  also  seized  all  the  best 
horses  of  the  province,  and  sent  parties  to  scour  the 
country  in  many  directions.  Thousands  of  hogsheads 
of  tobacco — a  great  part  of  them  destined  for  France ; 
many  ships  ;  long  lines  of  docks  and  warehouses  ;  bar- 
racks, and  many  other  public  buildings ;  vast  accumu- 
lations of  food  and  of  naval  and  military  stores,  were 
captured  or  burnt  without  difficulty  and  almost  without 
resistance.  Clinton  expressed  his  belief  that  with  a 
proper  reinforcement  and  a  naval  superiority  during 
the  next  campaign  a  mortal  stab  could  speedily  be  given 
to  the  rebellion,  and  General  Phillips  agreed  with  him, 
that  the  year  1781  would  probably  witness  its  complete 


en.  XIT.  WAR  IN  VIRGINIA,   1781.  449 

subjugation.1  On  May  13  Phillips  died^f  a  malignant 
fever,  and  he  was  succeeded  in  command  by  Arnold; 
but  Arnold  only  held  the  position  for  a  few  days. 
Cornwallis,  abandoning  his  enterprise  in  the  Carolinas, 
marched  in  less  than  a  month  from  Wilmington  in 
North  Carolina  to  Petersburg  in  Virginia,  and  arrived 
at  the  latter  place  on  May  20.  He  at  once  took  the 
command,  and  Arnold  was  soon  after  recalled  to  New 
York. 

Virginia  had  now  become  the  chief  centre  of  English 
operations  in  America,  for  Cornwallis  found  himself  at 
the  head  of  not  less  than  7,000  troops.  He  continued 
for  some  time  to  pursue  the  policy  of  his  predeces- 
sors, and  by  dividing  his  forces  he  carried  ruin  over 
a  great  part  of  the  province.  There  was  as  yet  no 
serious  resistance.  All  the  more  important  towns 
of  Virginia — Petersburg,  Richmond,  Charlottesville, 
Portsmouth,  Williamsburg — were  entered  by  the  Eng- 
lish. The  Virginian  Assembly  was  put  to  flight,  and 
some  of  its  members  were  taken.  Some  English  sol- 
diers— the  remains  of  the  army  detained  in  violation 
of  the  Convention  of  Saratoga — were  hastily  carried 
over  the  mountains  to  Winchester,2  and  it  was  com- 
puted that  in  a  short  time  the  damage  done  by  the 
English  might  be  valued  at  not  less  than  ten  millions 
of  dollars.3 

.  Lafayette,  who  commanded  the  American  forces  in 
the  province,  appears  to  have  shown  skill  and  prudence 
in  baffling  the  attempts  of  Cornwallis  to  bring  on  a 
general  action ;  but  his  forces  were  far  too  weak  to 
enable  him  seriously  to  obstruct  the  English.  Gradually, 
however,  they  increased  by  new  levies  of  Virginian 
militia,  and  especially  by  the  arrival  in  June  of  about 


1  Clinton's  Narrative,  pp.  6, 7.  •  Ibid.  358. 

*  Hildreth,  iii.  356. 


450    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTUHY.  OH.  xi*. 

1,000  men  frtfm  Pennsylvania  under  General  Wayne. 
The  American  force  then  consisted  of  2,000  regular 
troops,  and  3,200  militia.  On  July  6  Lafayette  at- 
tacked the  English  army  as  it  was  crossing  the  James 
river,  but  after  a  severe  engagement  he  was  beaten  off 
with  heavy  loss.1  The  American  forces,  however,  had 
now  become  so  powerful  that  it  was  no  longer  possible 
for  the  English  to  detach  marauding  parties,  and  Corn- 
wall is  resolved  to  concentrate  his  army  at  some  strong 
point  by  the  water-side  where  it  might  be  in  communi- 
cation with  the  English  fleet,  and  from  whence  it  might, 
if  necessary,  be  sent  either  to  New  York  or  to  the  South. 
This  step  appeared  the  more  essential  as  it  was  known 
that  a  French  fleet  under  De  Grasse  was  on  its  way  to 
America,  and  it  was  believed  that  a  combined  French 
and  American  attack  upon  New  York  was  impending. 
An  intercepted  letter  of  Washington  showed  that  such 
a  design  was  in  contemplation,2  and  Sir  Henry  Clinton, 
who  commanded  at  New  York,  called  upon  Corn  wall  is 
to  send  some  of  his  forces  for  its  defence ;  but  this  order 
was  afterwards  countermanded.  Between  2,000  and 
3,000  German  troops  had  arrived  at  New  York  and 
strengthened  the  garrison.  There  was  at  this  time 
some  dissension  between  Cornwallis  and  Clinton,  and 
some  ambiguity  and  vacillation  about  the  orders  which 
Clinton  sent  to  Cornwallis,  which  afterwards  gave  rise 
to  controversy ;  but  their  final  purport  was  that  Corn- 
wallis was  to  fortify  some  post  on  the  neck  of  land  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Chesapeake,  so  as  to  be  able  to  afford 
protection  to  the  English  fleet  which  was  destined  to  co- 
operate with  him,  and  Yorktown  was  indicated  as  pecu- 
liarly fitted  for  that  purpose.  Yorktown  and  Gloucester, 
two  opposite  peninsulas  running  out  into  the  river, 
wore  accordingly  selected.  They  were  occupied  on 


1  Mtmoires  de  Lafayette,  1. 506.        *  Washington's  Works,  viii.  6<X 


CH.  xiv.  CORNWALLIS   OCCUPIES   YORKTOWN.  451 

August  1,  1781,  and  by  the  22nd  the  whole  British 
army  in  Virginia,  consisting  of  rather  more  than  7,000 
men,  was  concentrated  there. 

The  position  of  the  British  was  not  a  very  strong 
one,  and  it  was  only  possible  to  fortify  it  hastily ;  but, 
as  it  lay  between  the  York  and  James  rivers,  it  com- 
manded a  large  sheet  of  water,  and  could  afford  sufficient 
protection  to  British  ships.  It  was  a  position  which 
could  be  securely  held  against  any  force  which  was  at 
this  time  in  Virginia,  and  it  was  not  likely  to  be  seri- 
ously endangered  as  long  as  the  English  had  an  ascen- 
dency on  the  sea.  On  the  other  hand,  if  this  condition 
failed ;  if  an  enemy  commanded  the  waters  and  could 
beleaguer  the  narrow  peninsulas,  the  situation  was  abso- 
lutely hopeless,  for  all  possibility  of  retreat  could  be 
easily  cut  off. 

We  must  now  turn  to  two  or  three  operations  which 
took  place  in  other  quarters.  On  July  6  Washington 
was  joined  at  White  Plains  by  the  small  French  army 
under  Count  de  Kochambeau,  who  had  long  been  con- 
fined in  Rhode  Island,  and  about  a  fortnight  later  the 
combined  armies  marched  in  the  direction  of  Long 
Island.  Although  an  attack  was  at  first  contemplated, 
it  was  found  to  be  impracticable,  and  the  Americans 
confined  themselves  to  reconnoitring  the  position  of  the 
English.1  The  expedition  had  the  effect  of  strengthen- 
ing Clinton  in  his  persuasion  that  a  serious  attack  on 
New  York  was  contemplated.  But  in  truth,  the  Ameri- 
can plan  was  changed,  and  it  was  resolved  to  mass  all 
available  forces  in  Virginia,  and,  with  the  assistance  of 
the  approaching  French  fleet  and  army,  to  crush  the 
army  of  Cornwallis.  Washington  and  Rochambeau  suc- 
ceeded without  attracting  notice  in  withdrawing  the 
bulk  of  their  army  from  the  camp.  They  marched  to 


1  Stedman,  ii.  397. 


452    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


CH.  XIT. 


Philadelphia,  where  they  arrived  on  August  30,  and 
proceeded  at  once  to  Virginia. 

On  the  very  day  on  which  Washington  entered 
Philadelphia  the  long-expected  fleet  of  De  Grasse  arrived 
in  the  Chesapeake.  Contrary  to  all  expectation,  it  con- 
tained not  less  than  twenty-eight  ships  of  the  line,  and 
when  combined  with  the  French  squadron  already  in 
Rhode  Island,  it  gave  France  an  indisputable  and  over- 
whelming ascendency  in  the  American  waters.  Sir 
Samuel  Hood  had  indeed  been  despatched  by  Rodney  to 
reinforce  the  English  navy  in  America,  and  he  arrived 
at  Sandy  Hook  on  August  28  ;  but  Rodney  had  greatly 
underrated  the  probable  strength  of  the  French  fleet, 
and  the  squadron  of  Hood  only  contained  fourteen  ships 
of  the  line.  Arriving  with  this  overwhelming  force,  De 
Grasse  at  once  proceeded  to  block  up  York  River,  to 
move  the  bulk  of  his  fleet  into  a  secure  and  protected 
bay,  and  to  land  3,200  French  soldiers  whom  he  had 
brought  from  the  West  Indies,  and  who  made  the  army 
of  Lafayette  superior  to  that  of  Cornwallis.  Admiral 
Graves,  who  now  commanded  the  whole  British  navy  in 
America,  attempted  to  relieve  Cornwallis,  and  on  Sep- 
tember 5  he  fought  an  indecisive  battle,  before  the 
French  squadron  from  Rhode  Island  had  arrived ;  but, 
though  some  ships  on  both  sides  were  severely  damaged, 
he  was  unable  to  draw  De  Grasse  from  his  protected 
situation,  and  he  at  length  returned  to  New  York. 

The  Rhode  Island  squadron  arrived  in  the  Chesa- 
peake and  made  the  naval  ascendency  of  the  French 
overwhelming,  and  at  the  same  time  it  brought  great 
quantities  of  heavy  ordnance  and  other  materials  for 
the  siege.  The  net  was  closing  tightly  around  the 
unhappy  English  general,  and  a  new  army  under 
Washington  and  Rochambeau  was  on  the  march. 

It  was  impossible  for  Clinton  to  relieve  Cornwallis, 
but  he  attempted  by  a  diversion  to  recall  a  part  of  the 


ca.  xiv.  DESTRUCTION  OF  NEW   LONDON.  453 

army  which  had  gone  to  Virginia.  Benedict  Arnold 
was  sent  in  the  beginning  of  September  to  attack  the 
town  of  New  London,  in  Connecticut,  which  was  a 
great  centre  of  privateering  and  of  military  stores,  and 
was  defended  by  Fort  Trumbull  and  Fort  Griswold,  the 
latter  a  place  of  considerable  strength.  It  was  captured 
after  some  hard  fighting,  and  in  Fort  Griswold  the 
exasperated  soldiers  are  said  for  some  time  to  have  given 
no  quarter,  and  to  have  killed  or  wounded  more  than 
100  Americans  after  they  had  declared  themselves 
ready  to  surrender.  Arnold  was  at  this  time  at  the 
opposite  side  of  the  river,  and  the  English  officer  com- 
manding the  assailing  body  either  could  not  or  would 
not  restrain  his  soldiers  till  all  but  about  seventy  of  the 
garrison  had  been  killed  or  wounded.  Ten  or  twelve 
of  the  enemies'  ships  and  great  quantities  of  naval 
stores  were  burnt ;  the  fire,  contrary  to  the  intention  of 
Arnold,  communicated  itself  to  the  civil  buildings,  and 
the  whole  town  was  destroyed.  This  was  the  last 
achievement  of  Arnold  in  America,  and  very  soon  after 
he  sailed  for  England.1 

The  destruction,  of  New  London  had,  however, 'no 
effect  upon  the  fortunes  of  the  war.  Washington 
steadily  pursued  his  march,  and  the  principal  obstacles 
he  encountered  were  financial  ones.  A  great  part  of 
his  troops,  he  complained,  had  been  long  unpaid.  The 
march  southwards  was  unpopular  with  the  Northern 
soldiers ;  but  *  a  douceur  of  a  little  hard  money  would 
put  them  in  a  proper  temper.'2  If  the  Americans 
had  been  left  unaided,  they  might  have  been  unable 
to  maintain  themselves,  but  French  assistance  supported 
them  at  every  step.  Count  Kochambeau  advanced  on 


1  Stedman,  Bancroft.     See,  too,  the  despatches  of  General  Heath 
in  Arnold's  Life  of  Arnold. 

2  Washington,  viii.  149,  150. 


454    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  XIT. 

his  own  authority  20,000  dollars,  and  on  August  25 
Laurens  arrived  from  Europe  bringing  with  him  a 
great  part  of  the  King  of  France's  gift  to  the  States. 
A  great  number  of  transports  were  collected,  and  on 
September  14  the  combined  army  of  Washington  and 
Rochambeau  arrived  at  Williamsburg,  in  Virginia,  and 
a  few  days  later  they  joined  Lafayette  in  the  inves- 
titure of  Yorktown.  The  position  of  Cornwallis  was 
now  absolutely  hopeless.  Shut  in  within  a  narrow 
promontory,  his  army  of  about  7,000  men  was  besieged 
by  an  army  of  more  than  16,000,  7,000  of  whom  were 
regular  French  soldiers,  while  a  fleet  far  more  powerful 
than  any  other  in  American  waters  commanded  every 
approach  by  sea.  On  September  25  Washington 
wrote  to  De  Grasse  that  the  success  of  the  combined 
French  and  American  attack  was  *  as  certain  as  any 
military  operations  can  be  rendered  by  a  decisive 
superiority  of  strength  and  means.' !  Before  long  the 
feeble  fortifications  of  Yorktown  became  completely 
untenable,  and  on  October  19,  1781,  Cornwallis  was 
obliged  to  surrender,  with  his  whole  army.  The 
soldiers  became  the  prisoners  of  the  Americans,  the 
seamen,  of  the  French. 

This  calamity  virtually  terminated  the  American 
war.  For  the  second  time  a  whole  British  army  was 
compelled  to  surrender.  The  power  of  England  in 
Virginia  was  destroyed  ;  her  power  in  the  more  South- 
ern States  could  not  now  be  long  maintained.  New 
York  alone  contained  a  considerable  British  force,  and 
in  the  sixth  year  of  the  war,  and  with  so  great  a  con- 
federation in  opposition  to  England,  it  seemed  im- 
possible that  the  disaster  could  ever  be  retrieved. 
Whether,  if  Rodney  had  been  less  occupied  with  the 
sale  of  the  goods  of  St.  Eustatius,  he  might  not  have 

1  Washington's  Works,  viii.  164. 


CH.  XIT.  SURRENDER   OF   CORNWALLIS.  455 

presented  the  naval  ascendency  in  America  passing 
out  of  English  hands  ;  whether  Cornwallis  might  not, 
before  the  arrival  of  Washington  and  his  army,  have 
extricated  himself  from  his  position,  and  cut  his  way 
into  North  Carolina ;  whether  Clinton,  at  New  York, 
did  everything  possible  to  relieve  him,  are  points  which 
have  been  fiercely  contested  by  military  critics.  It  was 
noticed,  however,  that  while  in  nearly  all  the  battles  in 
the  North  in  which  Howe  commanded,  the  English  had 
a  great  advantage  in  numbers,  in  nearly  all  the  battles 
in  the  South  the  English  under  Cornwallis  and  Rawdon 
were  greatly  outnumbered.1  Cornwallis  almost  alone 
among  the  British  commanders  in  America  showed 
himself  a  really  efficient  and  energetic  general,  and  in 
the  last  scene  his  position  was  beyond  recovery.  On 
the  day  previous  to  the  surrender  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  garrison  in  Yorktown  and  Gloucester  were  only 
5,950  men,  and  so  many  were  sick  and  wounded  that 
not  more  than  4,017  were  reported  fit  for  duty.2 

When  the  English  fleet  returned  to  New  York,  Clinton 
resolved  to  make  a  desperate  attempt  to  relieve  Corn- 
wallis, and  the  arrival  of  a  few  additional  ships  from 
England  and  the  West  Indies  made  the  attempt  not 
absolutely  hopeless.  He  embarked  with  7,000  men,  but 
some  time  elapsed  before  the  fleet  could  be  fitted  out,  and 
it  was  only  on  October  19  that  it  got  clear  of  the  bay. 
It  arrived  off  Cape  Virginia  on  the  24th,  learnt  there  the 
news  of  the  capitulation,  and  soon  returned  unmolested 
to  New  York.  In  the  capitulation,  Cornwallis  had  en- 
deavoured without  success  to  obtain  from  Washington 
an  article  exempting  the  loyalists  in  Yorktown  from 
punishment,  but  he  was  allowed  to  send  to  New  York  a 
ship  of  war  containing  as  many  soldiers  as  he  should 
think  fit,  on  condition  that  they  should  be  accounted 

1  Stedman,  ii.  415.  8  Ibid.  414. 

31 


456    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xiv. 

for  in  any  future  exchange,  and  he  was  thus  enabled  to 
save  his  American  followers  from  the  vengeance  of  their 
countrymen. 

It  was  on  November  25,  1781,  only  two  days  before 
the  meeting  of  Parliament,  that  the  fatal  news  of  the 
surrender  of  Yorktown  arrived  in  England.  Lord 
North,  who  had  long  looked  with  utter  despondency  011 
the  war,  saw  at  once  that  his  worst  fears  were  realised ; 
and  when  he  heard  the  intelligence  from  Lord  George 
Germaine,  his  accustomed  calm  forsook  him,  and  he 
paced  the  room  in  an  agony  of  distress,  exclaiming — • 
*  Oh  God,  it  is  all  over ! '  The  King,  however,  never 
for  a  moment  flinched.  He  saw,  indeed,  that  an  attempt 
to  carry  on  a  continental  war  in  America  must  be  re- 
linquished ;  but  he  was  perfectly  resolved  that  New  York 
and  Charleston,  or  at  least  the  former,  should  be  retained, 
and  that  American  independence  should  even  now  be 
withheld.  '  The  getting  a  peace  at  the  expense  of  a 
separation  from  America,'  he  wrote,  '  is  a  step  to  which 
no  difficulties  shall  ever  get  me  to  be,  in  the  smallest 
degree,  an  instrument.' 1  The  speech  at  the  opening  of 
Parliament,  though  announcing  the  catastrophe,  con- 
tained no  intimation  of  surrender  ;  but  the  conviction  of 
the  utter  hopelessness  of  continuing  the  war  in  America 
had  sunk  deeply  into  the  minds  of  the  more  independent 
members,  and  the  great  majority  which  had  so  long 
ruled  England  crumbled  speedily  away.  Burke  and 
Fox,  in  several  speeches  of  extraordinary  eloquence  and 
extraordinary  virulence,  assailed  the  whole  conduct  of 
the  war,  and  they  were  powerfully  supported  by  William 
Pitt,  the  son  of  the  great  Lord  Chatham,  who  was 
already  rapidly  rising  to  a  foremost  place.  The  ad- 
journment at  this  very  critical  time  for  the  Christmas 

1  Correspondence  of  George  III.  with  Lord  North,  ii.  398. 


CH.  xiv.  DISASTERS  IN  THE   WEST  INDIES.  457 

holidays,  on  December  21,  was  much  objected  t'o;  but 
before  that  date  it  had  become  evident  that  the  Cabinet 
was  profoundly  divided,  that  the  resolution  of  North  was 
wholly  shattered,  and  that  about  twenty  of  the  country 
gentry  had  already  passed  from  the  Government  to  the 
Opposition. 

Nothing  but  a  brilliant  military  triumph  could  have 
saved  the  Ministry,  but  not  one  gleam  of  success  relieved 
the  dreary  monotony  of  disaster  which  clouded  its  clos- 
ing days.  Admiral  Kempenfeldt,  who  had  been  sent  to 
intercept  the  French  fleet  from  Brest,  found  that  the 
information  of  the  Admiralty  about  the  number  of  tha 
enemy  was  wholly  erroneous,  and  he  was  obliged  to 
avoid  a  hopeless  contest  by  retreat.  St.  Eustatius  was 
taken  at  the  close  of  1781  by  the  Marquis  de  Bouille 
with  some  troops  taken  from  the  Irish  brigade.  In 
January  1782  the  Dutch  settlements  of  Demerara  and 
Essequibo,  which  the  English  had  taken,  were  re- 
captured by  the  French.  In  February  the  long  siege  of 
Minorca  terminated,  and  that  important  island  passed 
once  more  under  Spanish  rule.  In  the  same  month, 
after  several  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  and  in  spite  of  the 
great  gallantry  of  its  defenders,  and  of  a  small  English 
fleet  under  Sir  Samuel  Hood,  the  rich  island  of  St. 
Christopher  was  taken  by  the  French.  De  Bouille  had 
in  the  previous  month  landed  8,000  men  upon  it,  and 
he  was  supported  by  the  great  French  fleet  under 
De  Grasse.  The  islands  of  Nevis  and  Montserrat  at 
once  shared  the  fate  of  St.  Christopher ;  and  of  all  the 
great  English  possessions  in  the  West  Indies,  nothing 
now  remained  except  Jamaica,  Barbadoes,  and  Antigua. 
Eight  islands,  it  was  said,  as  well  as  thirteen  colonies, 
had  been  lost  by  the  Ministry  of  North. 

Great  public  meetings  in  London  and  Westminster 
now  strengthened  the  Opposition,  General  Carleton 
was  appointed  Commander-in-Chief  in  America  in  the 


458    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  en.  xiv. 

room  of  Clinton,  and  Lord  George  Germaine,  the  Secre^ 
tary  of  War,  who  was  at  enmity  with  Carleton,  resigned 
his  office  and  was  replaced  by  Welbore  Ellis.  At  the 
special  desire  of  the  King,  Germaine  was  raised  'to  the 
peerage  as  Viscount  Sackville,  and  his  promotion  more 
than  counterbalanced  the  popularity  of  his  removal. 
Several  peers,  recalling  the  sentence  of  the  court-martial 
which  sat  upon  him  twenty-three  years  before,  after  the 
battle  of  Minden,  inveighed  against  his  peerage  as  an 
insult  to  the  House  of  Lords.  In  the  Commons  censures 
of  the  Government  in  many  forms  and  on  many  topics 
were  eagerly  pressed  on,  and  parliamentary  language 
had  seldom  been  so  virulent.  It  was  soon  evident  that 
the  victory  belonged  to  the  Opposition.  Resolutions 
censuring  the  whole  administration  of  the  navy  were 
repelled  by  majorities  of  22  and  of  19  ;  but  an  address, 
moved  by  Conway,  petitioning  the*  King  to  stop  the 
American  war,  was  only  rejected  by  a  single  vote,  and 
the  Government  were  obliged  to  accept  a  resolution 
asserting  the  hopelessness  of  reducing  America.  At 
last,  on  March  20,  North  anticipated  a  motion  for  his 
dismissal,  by  announcing  his  resignation ;  and  in  a 
speech  of  much  dignity  and  pathos,  returned  thanks  to 
the  House  which  had  supported  him  so  long. 

'  At  last,'  wrote  the  King,  '  the  fatal  day  has  come.' 
His  feelings  were  clearly  shown  in  a  letter  in  which,  as 
late  as  March  19,  he  declared  that  his  '  sentiment  of 
honour '  would  not  permit  him  '  to  send  for  any  of  the 
leaders  of  Opposition  and  personally  treat  with  them,' 1 
and  for  a  short  time  he  is  said  to  have  gravely  contem- 
plated abdicating  the  throne  and  returning  to  Hanover. 
Attempts  were  made  to  induce  Shelburne,  and  after- 
wards Gower,  to  construct  a  Government,  but  they 
speedily  failed.  It  was  useless  to  dissolve  Parliament, 
for  the  country  was  far  more  hostile  to  the  f  alien  ministry 

1  Correspondence  of  George  III.  with  Lord  North,  ii.  415,  146. 


CH.  xv.  AMERICAN   ARMY,   1782.  459 

than  the  legislature,  and  it  had  become  evident  that  it 
was  now  only  possible  to  govern  by  one  party  and  by 
one  policy.  The  King  reluctantly  bowed  his  head  to 
the  yoke.  He  showed  indeed  his  personal  animosity  by 
refusing  to  negotiate  with  Rockingham  except  through 
the  intervention  of  Shelburne,  but  he  accepted  Rock- 
ingham  as  his  minister ;  the  Whig  party  once  more 
rose  to  power,  and  their  avowed  task  was  to  terminate 
the  war  by  recognising  the  Independence  of  America. 


CHAPTER  IV.1 

INDEPENDENT   AMERICA. 

IN  America  for  some  time  the  war  had  greatly  lan- 
guished. Immediately  after  the  surrender  of  Yorkto wn 
Washington  returned  with  his  army  to  the  vicinity  of 
New  York,  but  he  felt  himself  far  too  weak  to  attempt 
its  capture,  and  hostilities  were  restricted  to  a  few  in- 
decisive skirmishes  or  predatory  enterprises.  It  is 
curious  to  notice  how  far  from  sanguine  Washington 
appeared  even  after  the  event  which  in  the  eyes  of  most 
men,  outside  America,  had  determined  the  contest  with- 
out appeal.  It  was  still  impossible,  he  maintained,  to 
do  anything  decisive  unless  the  sea  were  commanded  by 
a  naval  force  hostile  to  England,  and  France  alone  could 
provide  this  force.2  The  difficulties  of  maintaining  the 
army  were  unabated.  £  All  my  accounts,'  he  wrote  in 
April  1T82,  '  respecting  the  recruiting  service  are  un- 
favourable ;  indeed,  not  a  single  recruit  has  arrived  to 
my  knowledge  from  any  State  except  Rhode  Island,  in 
consequence  of  the  requisitions  of  Congress  in  December 
last.3  He  strongly  urged  the  impossibility  of  recruit- 
ing the  army  by  voluntary  enlistment,  andrecommended 
that,in  addition  to  the  compulsory  enrolment  of  Ameri- 
cans, German  prisoners  should  be  taken  into  the  army.4 

1  Chapter  XV.  Lecky  's  History  of      201,205. 
England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century.          3  Ibid.  p.  271. 

2  Washington's     Works,     viii.          4  Ibid.  pp.  255,  271. 


460        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.      CH.  xv. 

Silas  Deane,  in  private  letters,  expressed  at  this  time 
his  belief  that  it  would  be  utterly  impossible  to  main- 
tain the  American  army  for  another  year;  and  even  after 
the  surrender  of  Cornwallis,  no  less  a  person  than  Sir 
Henry  Clinton  assured  the  Government  that,  with  a 
reinforcement  of  only  10,000  men,  he  would  be  respon- 
sible for  the  conquest  of  America.1 

The  condition  of  the  finances  was  utterly  ruinous.  In 
July  1782,  Robert  Morris,  who  managed  them  with  great 
ability,  submitted  to  the  Congress  his  budget  for  1783. 
At  least  nine  millions  of  dollars  were  necessary,  and  it 
was  calculated  that  five  millions  might  be  imposed  upon 
the  States,  and  that  the  remainder  must  be  raised  by  loan. 
It  was  also  necessary  to  take  some  measure  to  secure 
the  payment  of  the  interest  of  the  national  debt,  and  as 
it  had  become  quite  clear  that  this  could  only  be  done 
by  a  revenue  law  which  would  operate  through  the  whole 
Union,  Congress  asked  power  from  the  States  to  levy  a 
duty  of  five  per  cent,  on  imports.  But  Rhode  Island 
refused  to  consent ;  Massachusetts  consented  only  after 
long  hesitation,  and  its  governor,  Hancock,  vetoed  the 
Act ;  while  Virginia,  in  language  very  like  that  which 
it  had  used  against  England  at  the  time  of  the  Stamp 
Act,  denounced  the  idea  of  Congress  levying  taxes 
within  its  border  as  injurious  to  its  sovereignty  and 
likely  to  be  destructive  to  its  liberty.2  The  scheme, 
therefore,  which  was  intended  to  be  the  main  support  of 
American  credit,  was  abandoned,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  States  showed  the  greatest  possible  reluctance  to 
pay  the  quotas  of  the  expense  of  the  year  which  Con- 
gress had  assigned  to  them.  Of  the  five  millions  of 
dollars,  422,000  only  could  be  collected.  Delaware  and 
the  three  most  southern  States  gave  nothing ;  Rhode 


1  Adolphus,  iii.  394. 

•  Bancroft's  History  of  the  United  States,  x.  571,  572. 


CH.  xv.  HALF-PAY.  461 

Island  gave  proportionately  most,  and  it  gave  a  little 
more  than  a  sixth  part  of  its  quota.  Credit  was  gone, 
and  the  troops  had  long  been  unpaid.  *  The  long  suffer- 
ance of  the  army,'  wrote  Washington  in  October  1782, 
'  is  almost  exhausted.  It  is  high  time  for  peace.' l 

Nothing,  indeed,  except  the  great  influence,  the 
admirable  moderation  and  good  sense,  and  the  perfect 
integrity  of  Washington  could  have  restrained  the  army 
from  open  revolt.  The  men  who  had  borne  the  whole 
brunt  and  burden  of  the  war,  who  had  shown  in  many 
instances  the  most  admirable  patriotism  and  self-sacri- 
fice, found  themselves  reduced  to  penury,  and  over- 
whelmed with  debts,  because  the  States  evaded  or 
neglected  the  obligations  which  were  imposed  on  them, 
and  the  belief  was  very  generally  spread  among  them 
that  as  soon  as  the  peace  had  made  them  no  longer 
necessary,  they  would  be  cheated  of  what  was  due  to 
them.  Congress,  after  a  long  period  of  vacillation,  had 
in  October  1780  at  length  pledged  itself  by  a  resolution 
to  give  the  American  officers  half-pay  for  life,  and  by 
this  measure  alone  had  prevented  the  army  from  dis- 
banding. The  pledge  was  binding  upon  the  nation  as 
the  clearest  and  most  sacred  obligation  of  honour,  but 
was  it  likely  that  it  would  be  observed  ?  It  had  been 
carried  in  spite  of  strong  opposition.  The  New  England 
patriots  were  fiercely  hostile  to  half-pay  as  savouring  of 
the  abuses  of  a  monarchy,  and  tending  to  establish  a 
military  caste.  It  was  very  doubtful — such  at  least  was 
the  opinion  which  the  American  officers  had  formed  of 
their  legislators — whether  ^Congress  would  wish  to  fulfil 
its  promise.  It  was  equally  doubtful  whether  it  would 
be  able  to  do  so.  Since  the  resolution  had  been  carried, 
the  Articles  of  Confederation,  which  required  the  con- 
currence of  nine  States  to  any  Act  appropriating  public 

1  Bancroft's  History  of  the  United  States,  x.  573. 


462    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  XT. 

money,  had  been  adopted,  and  nine  States  had  never 
been  in  favour  of  the  measure.  The  States  had  hitherto 
refused  to  establish  any  continental  funds  for  the  pay- 
ment of  the  debt  to  the  army.  Under  these  circum- 
stances, a  feeling  of  deep  suspicion  and  of  bitter  re- 
sentment had  spread  through  the  ranks,  and  especially 
among  the  officers,  and  it  took  forms  that  were  very 
ominous.  An  extreme  disgust  at  republican  govern- 
ment was  openly  expressed,  and  it  was.  clearly  intimated 
to  Washington  that  if  he  would  accept  a  crown  he  might 
obtain  it.  Anonymous  addresses,  written  with  great 
ability,  and  known  to  represent  the  opinions  of  a  large 
body  of  officers,  were  circulated  in  the  army,  recom- 
mending the  officers  to  relinquish  the  service  in  a  body 
if  the  war  continued,  or  to  retain  their  arms  in  case 
of  peace  if  Congress  refused  to  comply  with  their 
demands.  It  was  with  great  difficulty,  and  by  great 
management,  that  Washington  could  in  some  degree 
appease  the  storm,  while  the  fact  that  he  had  himself 
refused  all  reward  for  his  services  gave  him  a  special 
weight  in  pleading  the  cause  of  his  soldiers.  The  pro- 
mised half-pay  was  found  to  be  so  unpopular  in  several 
States  that  it  would  have  been,  impossible  to  vote  it,  so 
it  was  agreed  to  commute  it  for  a  gross  sum  equal  to 
five  years'  pay,  and,  in  spite  of  a  scream  of  indignation 
from  New  England,  the  requisite  majority  of  the  States 
were  at  last  induced  to  secure  that  this  should  be  paid 
at  the  end  of  the  war.1 

Holland,  immediately  after  the  surrender  of  York- 
town,  had  recognised  tbfe  independence  of  America, 
which  had  as  yet  only  been  recognised  by  France.  John 
Adams  was  received  as  representative  at  the  Hague,  and 
after  several  abortive  efforts  he  succeeded  in  raising  a 

1  Sparks'  Life  in  Washington's  433.  Curtis,  History  of  the  Con- 
Works,  i.  385-392.  See,  too,  stitution  of  the  United  States,  i. 
viu.  398-406.  Hildreth,  iii.  427-  159-170,  190-194. 


CH.  xv.  FOREIGN  LOANS.  463 

Dutch  loan.  France,  as  her  ablest  ministers  well  knew, 
was  drifting  rapidly  towards  bankruptcy,  yet  two  Ameri- 
can loans,  amounting  together  to  600,OOOZ.,  were  ex- 
torted in  the  last  year  of  the  war.  Up  to  the  very  eve  of 
the  formal  signature  of  peace,  and  long  after  the  virtual 
termination  of  the  war,  the  Americans  found  it  neces- 
sary to  besiege  the  French  Court  for  money.  As  late  as 
December  5,  1782,  Franklin  wrote  from  Paris  to  Living- 
ston complaining  of  the  humiliating  duty  which  was 
imposed  upon  him.  '  It  is  in  vain  for  me,'  he  wrote,  '  to 
repeat  again  what  I  have  so  often  written,  and  what  I 
find  taken  so  little  notice  of,  that  there  are  bounds  to 
everything,  and  that  the  faculties  of  this  nation  are 
limited,  like  those  of  all  other  nations.  Some  of  you 
seem  to  have  established  as  maxims  the  suppositions 
that  France  has  money  enough  for  all  her  occasions  and 
all  ours  besides.' l 

The  reply  of  Livingston  was  dated  January  6,  1783, 
and  it  paints  vividly  the  extreme  distress  in  America. 
*  I  see  the  force,'  he  writes,  *  of  your  objections  to 
soliciting  the  additional  twelve  millions,  and  I  feel- 
very  sensibly  the  weight  of  our  obligations  to  France, 
'but  every  sentiment  of  this  kind  must  give  way  to  our 
necessities.  It  is  not  for  the  interest  of  our  allies 
to  lose  the  benefit  of  all  they  have  done  by  refusing 
to  make  a  small  addition  to  it.  ...  The  army  demand 
with  importunity  their  arrears  of  pay.  The  treasury 
is  empty,  and  no  adequate  means  of  filling  it  presents 
itself.  The  people  pant  for  peace  ;  should  contributions 
be  exacted,  as  they  have  hitherto  been,  at  the  point  of  the 
sword,  the  consequences  may  be  more  dreadful  than  is 
at  present  apprehended.  I  do  not  pretend  to  justify 
the  negligence  of  the  States  in  not  providing  greater 
supplies.  Some  of  them  might  do  more  than  they  have 

1  American  Diplomatic  Correspondence,  iv.  48- 


464:    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xv, 

done ;  none  of  them  all  that  is  required.  It  is  my  duty 
to  confide  to  you,  that  if  the  war  is  continued  in  this 
country,  it  must  be  in  a  great  measure  at  the  expense 
of  France.  If  peace  is  made,  a  loan,  will  be  absolutely 
necessary  to  enable  us  to  discharge  the  army,  that  will 
not  easily  separate  without  pay.' l 

It  was  evident  that  the  time  for  peace  had  come. 
The  predatory  expeditions  which  still  continued  in 
America  could  only  exasperate  still  further  both  nations, 
and  there  were  some  signs — especially  in  the  conflicts 
between  loyalists  and  revolutionists — that  they  were 
having  this  effect.  England  had  declared  herself  ready  to 
concede  the  independence  America  demanded.  Georgia 
and  South  Carolina,  where  the  English  had  found  so 
many  faithful  friends,  were  abandoned  in  the  latter  half 
of  1782,  and  the  whole  force  of  the  Crown  was  now 
concentrated  at  New  York  and  in  Canada.  France  and 
Spain  for  a  time  wished  to  protract  negotiations  in 
hopes  that  Kodney  might  be  crushed,  that  Jamaica  and 
afterwards  Gibraltar  might  be  captured  ;  but  all  these 
hopes  had  successively  vanished.  It  was  true  that  the 
united  navies  of  the  two  branches  of  the  House  of 
Bourbon  still  outnumbered  the  navy  of  England  even 
without  the  assistance  of  the  Dutch,  and  France  was 
making  strenuous  efforts  to  repair  the  injury  done  to 
her  navy  by  the  victory  of  Rodney,  but  the  dockyards 
of  England  were  equally  active.  England  in  the  last 
year  had  increased  her  navy,  chiefly  by  capture,  by  no 
less  than  seventeen  vessels,  while  France  alone  had 
suffered  a  diminution  of  thirteen  ships  of  the  line  ; 2  and 
the  navy  of  England  was  flushed  by  a  great  victory, 
while  the  navy  of  France  was  depressed  by  a  great 
defeat.  If  the  war  continued  much  longer  America 


1  American  Diplomatic  Corre-          2  Annual    Register,    1783,  j> 
tpondence,  iv.  62,  63.  157, 


CH.  xv.      PRELIMINARY  ARTICLES  OF  PEACE.       465 

would  almost  certainly  drop  away,  and  France,  and 
perhaps  Spain,  become  bankrupt.  After  many  disputes 
about  forms,  and  some  unnecessary  delay,  the  terms  of 
peace  between  England  on  the  one  hand,  and  America, 
France  and  Spain  on  the  other,  were  settled,  in  the 
latter  part  of  1782.  England  was  represented  in  the 
negotiation  by  Oswald  and  Fitzherbert  ;  France  by 
Yergennes  ;  Spain  by  D'Aranda  ;  America  by  Franklin, 
John  Adams,  and  Jay.  The  provisional  articles  of  peace 
between  England  and  the  United  States  were  signed  on 
November  30,  1782,  and  the  preliminary  articles  with 
France  and  Spain  on  January  20,  1783.  Peace  with 
Holland  was  not  yet  concluded,  but  a  truce  was  signed 
which  put  an  end  to  the  war. 

Compared  with  the  Peace  of  Paris,  the  new  peace 
was  necessarily  a  humiliating  one,  for  the  balance  of 
losses  in  the  war  had  been  greatly  against  England. 
At  the  same  time  almost  all  that  she  relinquished  to 
her  European  enemies  had  been  taken  from  them  in  the 
late  wars,  and  a  considerable  part  of  what  had  been 
gained  by  the  Peace  of  Paris  was  still  retained.  By  the 
treaty  with  France,  that  Power  was  guaranteed,  with 
some  slight  modifications,  the  right  to  fish  off  New- 
foundland, which  had  been  acknowledged  by  the  treaties 
of  Utrecht  and  of  Paris,  and  the  little  neighbouring 
islands  of  St.  Pierre  and  Miquelon  passed  into  her  com- 
plete possession.  In  the  West  Indies,  England  restored 
St.  Lucia  and  ceded  Tobago,  but  she  received  back  the 
important  island  of  Dominica  and  the  small  islands  of 
Grenada,  St.  Vincent,  St.  Christopher,  Nevis,  and  Mont- 
eerrat.  In  Africa,  Senegal  and  Goree  became  French  ; 
while  Fort  James  and  the  river  Gambia  remained 
English.  In  India  the  French  regained  their  establish- 
ments in  Orissa  and  Bengal,  Pondicherry  and  Carical, 
the  Fort  of  Mahe,  and  the  commercial  establishment  of 
Surat,  and  they  also  acquired  some  considerable  trade 


466    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  ZT, 

privileges  ;  and  finally,  the  humiliating  article  of  the 
treaty  of  Utrecht  which  enjoined  the  demolition  of  the 
harbour  and  fortress  of  Dunkirk  was  abrogated. 

All  the  efforts  of  Spain,  by  negotiation  as  well  as  by 
arms,  to  obtain  Gibraltar  were  in  vain,  but  Minorca  was 
once  more  united  to  the  Spanish  crown.  Spain  retained 
West  Florida,  and  England  ceded  to  her  East  Florida. 
Spain,  on  the  other  hand,  guaranteed  the  right  of  the 
English  to  cut  logwood  in  Honduras  Bay,  and  she 
restored  Providence  and  the  Bahama  isles. 

It  was  easy  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  every 
concession  made  by  England,  and  to  contend  that  after 
the  victory  of  Rodney  and  the  virtual  cessation  of  the 
American  war  it  was  unnecessary.  Candid  men  will, 
however,  remember  how  enormously  England  was  out- 
numbered by  her  enemies,  how  doubtful  even  yet  was 
her  naval  ascendency,  how  fatally  it  might  have  been 
affected  by  a  single  naval  defeat,  how  crushing  was  the 
weight  of  the  national  debt,  how  numerous  were  the 
English  possessions  which  were  actually  in  the  hands  of 
the  enemy.  The  points  on  which  the  Opposition  especi- 
ally dilated  were  the  dangers  to  the  Newfoundland 
fishery  resulting  from  the  right  the  French  obtained  of 
fortifying  the  islands  of  St.  Pierre  and  Miquelon,  the 
danger  to  England  from  the  apprehended  fortification  of 
Dunkirk,  the  injury  done  to  the  English  cotton  manu- 
facture by  the  cession  of  Tobago,  and  the  absence  of 
any  provision  guaranteeing  liberty  of  worship  and  an 
undisturbed  residence  to  the  many  loyal  subjects  of 
England  in  East  Florida.  On  the  whole,  however,  the 
treaties  were  probably  as  good  as  could  be  expected,  and 
it  is  not  likely  that  a  continuance  of  the  war  would  have 
ameliorated  the  position  of  England. 

The  treaty  with  the  United  States  gave  greater 
scope  for  adverse  criticism.  Parliament  had  indeed 
already  simplified  the  question  by  its  resolution  in 


en.  xv.     TREATY  WITH  THE  UNITED  STATES.      467 

favour  of  the  complete  recognition  of  the  independence 
of  the  thirteen  States,  and  the  Americans  soon  aban- 
doned their  demands  for  the  cession  of  Canada  and 
Nova  Scotia,  and  for  compensation  for  private  property 
destroyed  in  the  course  of  the  war.  The  question  of 
boundaries,  however,  presented  greater  difficulty,  and 
Shelburne  determined,  probably  wisely,  that  he  would 
if  possible  lay  the  foundation  of  future  friendship  by 
acting  as  liberally  as  possible  in  his  concessions.  The 
vast  unsettled  western  country,  inhabited  chiefly  by  the 
Indians,  which  lay  between  the  Alleghanies  and  the 
Mississippi  was  acknowledged  to  be  part  of  the  United 
States,  England  only  retaining  the  right  of  free  naviga- 
tion of  the  Mississippi,  which  was  made  the  western 
boundary  of  the  United  States,  and  divided  its  territory 
from  that  of  Spain.  This  concession  gave  an  immense 
field  for  the  future  development  of  the  United  States, 
while  from  its  geographical  position  it  was  impossible 
that  England  could  exercise  any  control  in  those  quar- 
ters. The  Canadian  frontier  had  always  been  a  matter 
of  great  doubt,  but  it  was  at  last  determined  to  abandon 
the  boundary  which  had  been  settled  by  the  Quebec  Act 
in  1774,  as  well  as  that  which  England  had  endeavoured 
to  assign  to  it  in  1754,  when  it  belonged  to  the  French, 
and  to  take  a  new  and  intermediate  boundary  extending 
through  the  great  lakes,  and  granting  to  the  United 
States  a  large  part  of  what  the  Quebec  Act  had  reckoned 
as  belonging  to  Canada  and  Nova  Scotia.  This  territory 
contained  only  a  very  few  scattered  white  men,  but  the 
Opposition  complained  bitterly  that  in  the  north  as  well 
as  in  the  west  several  important  forts,  raised  and  main- 
tained at  English  expense,  were  ceded  without  compen- 
sation ;  that  a  boundary  line  which  approached  within 
twenty-four  miles  of  Montreal  was  inconsistent  with  the 
security  of  what  remained  of  Canada ;  that  the  fur  trade, 
which  had  hitherto  been  a  monopoly  of  the  Canadian 

\ 


468         ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,      en,  xv. 

merchants,  was  at  least  divided  with  American  mer- 
chants ;  and  that  no  less  than  twenty-four  tribes  of 
Indians,  who  had  been  thoroughly  loyal  to  the  British 
Crown,  were  handed  over,  without  the  smallest  stipula- 
tion in  their  favour,  to  the  American  rule.  The  Ameri- 
cans had  liberty  to  fish  on  all  the  banks  of  Newfound- 
land and  in  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence,  but  they  were  not 
permitted  to  dry  or  cure  fish  on  the  island  of  Newfound- 
land. It  was  noticed  that  there  was  no  corresponding 
authorisation  for  British  subjects  to  fish  on  American 
coasts. 

There  were  two  other  points  which  excited  great 
difficulty.  England  demanded  that  the  private  debts 
incurred  by  American  citizens  to  English  citizens  before 
1775  should  be  recognised  as  binding.  This  was  indeed 
a  question  of  the  simplest  honesty,  and  there  were  con- 
siderable old  debts  outstanding,  chiefly  to  Glasgow  mer- 
chants, which,  when  the  troubles  began,  the  Americans  had 
been  unwilling  or  unable  to  pay.  Franklin  strenuously 
opposed  the  demand,  ingeniously  alleging  that  much  of 
the  merchandise  from  the  sale  of  which  these  debts 
ought  to  have  been  paid  had  been  destroyed  by  English 
soldiers  during  the  war.  John  Adams,  however,  whose 
sense  of  honour  was  much  higher  than  that  of  his  col- 
league, fully  admitted  the  justice  of  the  English  claim, 
and  declared  '  that  he  had  no  notion  of  cheating  any- 
body/ that  *  the  question  of  paying  debts  and  compen- 
sating Tories  were  two.' 1  The  dispute  was  ultimately 
settled  by  a  general  clause  stating  '  that  creditors  on 
either  side  shall  meet  with  no  lawful  impediment  to  the 
recovery  of  the  full  value  in  sterling  money  of  all  bond 
fide  debts  heretofore  contracted/ 

The  other  question  at  issue  was  one  in  which  the 
honour  of  England  was  deeply  concerned.  It  was  that 


Fitzmaurice's  Life  of  Slielburne,  iii.  293. 


en.  7v7.   THE  LOYALISTS — FRANCE  AND  AMERICA.    469 

those  who  had  taken  arms  for  the  Crown  should  be 
restored  to  their  country  and  their  rights,  and  should 
regain  the  estates  that  had  been  confiscated,  or  at  least 
obtain  an  equivalent  for  their  loss.  On  these  points, 
however,  the  American  plenipotentiaries  were  obdurate. 
All  that  could  be  obtained  was  an  engagement  that 
there  should  be  no  future  confiscations  or  prosecutions 
on  account  of  the  part  taken  in  the  war ;  that  Congress 
would  *  earnestly  recommend  it  to  the  legislatures  of  the 
respective  States '  to  restore  the  confiscated  estates  of 
real  British  subjects,  and  of  Americans  who  had  not 
actually  taken  arms  for  the  British;  that  Congress 
would  also  earnestly  recommend  that  loyalists  who  had 
taken  arms  should  receive  back  their  estates  on  refund- 
ing the  money  which  had  been  paid  for  them,  and  that 
such  persons  should  have  liberty  to  remain  for  twelve 
months  in  the  United  States  '  unmolested  in  their  en- 
deavours '  to  obtain  the  restitution  of  their  confiscated 
estates  and  rights. 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  fact  in  the  negotiation 
which  led  to  the  American  peace  was  that  in  its  latter 
stages  the  parties  most  seriously  opposed  to  one  another 
were  not  the  English  and  Americans,  but  the  Americans 
and  the  French.  Franklin,  it  is  true,  always  leaned  to 
the  French  side,  and  showed  much  gratitude  to  France 
and  some  animosity  to  England  ;  but  John  Adams  had 
long  disliked  and  distrusted  Vergennes,1  and  Jay,  who 
had  at  one  time  been  an  ardent  advocate  of  the  French 
alliance,  changed  into  the  most  violent  hostility.  '  He 
thinks/  wrote  Franklin, £  the  French  minister  one  of  the 
greatest  enemies  of  our  country ;  that  he  would  have 
straitened  our  boundaries  to  prevent  the  growth  of  our 
people,  contracted  our  fishery  to  obstruct  the  increase 
of  our  seamen,  and  retained  the  royalists  among  us  to 

1  See  Adams'  Life.     Works,  i.  320,  321. 


470        ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.      CH.  ZT. 

keep  us  divided ;  that  he  privately  opposes  all  our  ne- 
gotiations with  foreign  Courts,  and  afforded  us  during 
the  war  the  assistance  we  received,  only  to  keep  it  alive 
that  we  might  be  so  much  the  more  weakened  by  it ; 
that  to  think  of  gratitude  to  France  is  the  greatest  of 
follies,  and  that  to  be  influenced  by  it  would  ruin  us. 
He  makes  no  secret  of  his  having  these  opinions,  and 
expresses  them  publicly,  sometimes  in  presence  of  the 
English  ministers/  l 

Considering  all  that  France  had  done  for  America, 
such  language  sounds  very  strange,  but  it  is  not  difficult 
to  explain  it.  While  the  French  minister  had  never 
wavered  in  his  determination  to  secure  the  independence 
of  the  old  English  colonies  in  America,  he  had,  as  we 
have  seen,  uniformly  discouraged  all  attempts  to  annex 
Canada  to  them,  and  he  aimed  at  the  establishment  of 
a  balance  of  power  in  America  in  which  neither  England 
nor  the  United  States  should  have  a  complete  ascen- 
dency. In  accordance  with  the  same  policy  he  con- 
tended that  the  country  of  the  great  lakes  was  incon- 
testably  either  a  dependency  of  Canada  or  the  property 
of  Indians,  and  that  the  United  States  had  no  title  to 
it.  In  October  1782  Yergennes  expressed  these  views 
in  a  secret  despatch  to  the  French  envoy  in  America ; 
he  added,  with  some  bitterness,  that  once  the  French 
ceased  to  subsidise  the  American  army  it  would  be  '  as 
useless  as  it  has  been  habitually  inactive,'  and  he  ex- 
pressed his  astonishment  at  the  new  demand  for  money, 
while  the  Americans  obstinately  refused  the  payment 
of  taxes.  *  It  seems  to  be  much  more  natural,'  he  wrote, 
*  for  them  to  raise  upon  themselves,  rather  than  upon 
the  subjects  of  the  King,  the  funds  which  the  defence 
of  their  cause  exacts.' 2  A  month  later  he  intimated  to 


1  American  Diplomatic  Corre-          2  Bancroft's    History    of  thi 
ipondence,  iv.  138.  United  States,  x.  582. 


CH.  XT.  FRANCE   AND   AMERICA.  471 

the  French  ambassador  at  Madrid  his  determination  not 
to  continue  the  war  on  account  of  the  ambitious  pre- 
tensions of  the  Americans,  either  with  reference  to  the 
fisheries  or  to  their  boundaries.1  France  had  herself  an 
interest  in  the  Newfoundland  fishery,  and  the  French 
agents  strongly  denied  the  right  of  the  Americans  to  an 
unrestricted  participation  in  it.  The  fishery  of  the  broad 
sea,  they  said,  is  by  natural  law  open  to  all ;  coast 
fisheries,  apart  from  express  treaty  provisions,  belong 
exclusively  to  the  sovereigns  of  the  coast  ;  and  the 
Americans,  in  ceasing  to  be  British  subjects,  had  lost 
all  right  to  fish  upon  an  English  coast.2 

The  Americans  soon  discovered  that  on  these  two 
important  questions  the  influence  of  France  was  hostile 
to  them,  and  on  the  question  of  the  Mississippi  boundary 
the  same  opposition  appeared.  The  country  bounded 
on  the  north  by  Canada,  on  the  south  by  part  of  Florida, 
on  the  west  by  the  Mississippi,  and  on  the  east  by  the 
Alleghany  Mountains,  fringed  the  whole  length  of  the 
United  States ;  and  although  it  had  not  yet  been  ap- 
propriated or  divided  into  States,  it  was  the  great  field 
in  which  the  ultimate  expansion  of  the  English  race 
might  be  anticipated.  According  to  the  Spaniards  the 
boundaries  of  Florida  extended  far  into  this  country, 
but  England  had  never  acknowledged  the  claim.  In 
the  proclamation  of  1763  the  country  was  recognised  as 
Indian  territory  external  to  the  English  establishments.3 
Vergennes  agreed  with  Spain  that  the  United  States 
were  nowhere  in  contact  with  the  Mississippi.  The 
northern  portion  of  the  disputed  territory,  as  far  down 
as  the  Ohio,  he  thought  should  be  considered  part  of 


1  Bancroft's    History    of   the  neval  on  the  subject.    American 
United,  States,  x.  588.  Diplomatic  Correspondence,  viii. 

2  Circourt,  ii.  243.  156-160. 
»  See  the  memorial   of  Ray- 

32 


4:72    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   ca.  XT, 

Canada,  in  accordance  with  the  boundary  defined  by 
the  Quebec  Act.  The  southern  portion,  in  accordance 
with  the  proclamation  of  1763,  he  wished  to  be  con- 
sidered Indian  territory,  under  the  joint  protectorate  of 
Spain  and  the  United  States. 

The  question  was  one  which  had  been  for  some  time 
pending.  In  1779,  Congress  had  put  forward  an  ulti- 
matum for  peace,  in  which  they  claimed  the  Mississippi 
for  their  western  boundary.  In  1780,  however,  when 
the  question  of  a  Spanish  alliance  was  raised,  the  French 
envoy  had  strongly  represented  that  the  States  had  no 
right  whatever  to  this  western  territory  or  to  the  navi- 
gation of  the  river;  that  the  Spanish  conquests  would 
probably  spread  over  this  country,  and  that  an  abandon- 
ment of  the  claim  to  the  Mississippi  boundary  was 
indispensable  if  Spain  was  to  be  induced  to  co-operate 
in  the  war.  Congress  listened  to  the  advice,  and  silently 
dropped  the  claim,  making  a  simple  acknowledgment  of 
the  independence  of  the  States  the  sole  condition  of 
peace.1  The  claim,  however,  to  the  Mississippi  boundary 
was  now  revived,  and  as  it  was  a  matter  of  little  or  no 
importance  to  England,  it  produced  the  curious  spectacle 
of  a  kind  of  alliance  between  the  English  and  American 
diplomatists  in  opposition  to  those  of  France  and  Spain. 

The  motives  of  the  French  ministers  appear  to  have 
been  twofold.  They  were  consistently  jealous  of  the 
too  great  expansion  of  the  new  State,  and  they  were 
anxious  to  assist  their  allies  the  Spaniards.  France  had 
found  herself  unable  to  fulfil  her  pledge  of  recovering 
Gibraltar  by  arms;  she  had  failed  in  her  attempts  to 
induce  England  to  cede  it  in  exchange  for  Oran,  or 
West  Florida  and  the  Bahama  islands,  or  Guadeloupe, 
and  she  had  equally  failed  in  her  intention  of  restoring 
Jamaica  to  Spain.  Under  these  circumstances,  Ver- 


Fitzmaurice' s  Life  of  Shelburne,  iii.  169-173. 


en.  sv.  FRANCE,    SPAIN,    AND   AMERICA.  473 

gennes  would  gladly  have  compensated  Spain  by  giving 
her  the  power  of  extending  her  dominion  through  the 
unoccupied  territory  to  the  west  of  the  inhabited  part  of 
the  United  States,  and  by  securing  to  her  the  sole  navi- 
gation of  the  Mississippi. 

The  antagonism  on  these  points  was  very  keen. 
Oswald  placed  in  the  hands  of  Jay  a  despatch  from, 
Marbois,  the  secretary  of  the  French  legation  at  Phil- 
adelphia, which  had  been  intercepted  by  the  English, 
and  which  showed  an  extreme  hostility  to  the  claims 
which  Samuel  Adams  and  a  large  party  in  New  England 
were  putting  forward  to  participate  in  the  fisheries.1 
Vergennes  sent  his  favourite  secretary  Kayneval  with 
profound  secrecy  to  London  to  communicate  with  Shel- 
burne.  Jay  heard  of  it,  and  at  once  despatched  a  secret 
messenger  of  his  own  to  counteract  the  negotiation. 
Oswald  appears  to  have  told  Jay  very  strange  stories  of 
intimations  that  French  ministers  were  said  to  have 
given  in  1780  and  1782,  to  influential  Englishmen,  of 
their  willingness  to  terminate  the  contest  by  dividing 
the  American  colonies  between  France  and  England,2  and 
the  Americans  were  quite  aware  that  the  French  were 
opposing  their  claims  to  the  fisheries  and  to  the  extended 
boundaries.  On  the  Mississippi  question  the  parts  were 
so  curiously  inverted  that  Jay  strongly  maintained  in 
opposition  to  Spain  the  right  of  the  English  to  a  free 
navigation  on  that  river,  and  he  even  urged  that  Eng- 
land should  retain  West  Florida  for  herself,  instead  of 
ceding  it  to  Spain.3  England,  on  the  other  hand,  with 
some  restrictions  which  were  easily  compromised,  was 
ready  to  meet  the  American  demands.  The  United 
States  obtained  a  much  greater  extension  to  the  north 


1  See  this  letter  in  Jay's  Life,          8  Fitzmaurice's  Life  of  Shel- 
by  his  son,  i.  490-494.  burne,  iii.  272. 

*  Ibid.  pp.  156-159. 


4:74:    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  zv. 

and  to  the  west,  and  a  mucli  greater  share  in  the  New- 
foundland fishery  than  the  French  considered  they  had 
a  right  to,  and  the  alliance  between  France  and  America 
was  seriously  impaired. 

In  June  1781,  Congress  had,  perhaps  imprudently, 
consented,  at  the  wish  of  the  French  ministers,  to  bind 
their  commissioners  by  instructions  which  placed  the 
whole  control  of  the  negotiations  for  peace  in  the  hands 
of  the  French.  The  recognition  of  independence  was 
alone  made  indispensable.  For  the  rest  the  language  of 
the  instructions  was  as  explicit  as  possible :  '  You  are 
to  make  the  most  candid  and  confidential  communica- 
tions upon  all  subjects  to  the  ministers  of  our  generous 
ally  the  King  of  France ;  to  undertake  nothing  in  the 
negotiations  for  peace  or  truce  without  their  knowledge 
and  concurrence,  and  ultimately  to  govern  yourself  by 
their  advice  and  opinion.' 1  No  words  could  more  dis- 
tinctly pledge  the  American  commissioners  to  France. 
But  in  spite  of  them,  Vergennes  complained  that  on 
the  very  eve  of  the  peace  he  could  obtain  only  the 
vaguest  and  most  unsatisfactory  answers  about  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  American  negotiators,  and  those  negotia- 
tors at  last  signed  the  preliminary  articles  without  his 
knowledge.  *  As  we  had  reason,'  they  wrote  to  Living- 
ston when  announcing  this  step,  '  to  imagine  that  the 
articles  respecting  the  boundaries,  the  refugees,  and 
fisheries  did  not  correspond  with  the  policy  of  this 
court,  we  did  not  communicate  the  preliminaries  to  the 
minister  until  they  were  signed.'  * 

They  were  communicated  immediately  after,  with 
the  exception  of  one  article,  which  was  kept  separate 
and  secret,  defining  the  northern  boundary  of  West 
Florida  if  that  province  were  retained  by  Spain.  Yer- 

1  Trescot's  Diplomacy  of  the          2  American  Diplomatic 
Revolution,  p.  110.     See  Frank-       spondence,  x.  120. 
lin's  Works,  ix.  453. 


ST. 


REMONSTRANCE   OF  VERGENNES.  475 


gennes  complained  bitterly  that  the  commissioners,  in 
signing  the  articles  without  the  knowledge  of  the  French 
ministers,  without  even  informing  themselves  of  the 
state  of  the  negotiations  between  France  and  England, 
had  been  guilty  of  a  gross  breach  of  faith  and  of.  gross 
ingratitude.  John  Adams,  he  added,  on  his  return 
from  Holland  to  take  part  in  the  negotiations,  had 
passed  nearly  three  weeks  in  Paris  without  the  ordinary 
attention  and  courtesy  of  calling  on  him.  In  a  con- 
fidential and  very  remarkable  despatch  he  directed 
Luzerne,  who  was  French  minister  in  America,  to  in- 
form the  chief  members  of  the  Congress  of  the  con- 
duct of  the  American  commissioners,  and  he  complained 
of  the  difficulties  which  it  threw  upon  France,  which  had 
to  attend  not  only  to  her  own  interests,  but  also  to  those 
of  Spain  and  Holland.  The  French  negotiation  with 
England,  he  said,  was  still  by  no  means  terminated, 
'  not  that  the  King,  if  he  had  shown  as  little  delicacy  in 
his  proceedings  as  the  American  commissioners,  might 
not  have  signed  articles  with  England  long  before  them.' 
'  I  accuse  no  person,'  he  concluded  ;  *  I  blame  no  one, 
not  even  Dr.  Franklin.  He  has  yielded  too  easily  to  the 
bias  of  his  colleagues,  who  do  not  pretend  to  recognise 
the  rules  of  courtesy  in  regard  to  us.  All  their  atten- 
tions have  been  taken  up  by  the  English  whom  they 
have  met  in  Paris.  If  we  may  judge  of  the  future  from 
what  has  passed  here  under  our  eyes,  we  shall  be  but 
poorly  paid  for  all  that  we  have  done  for  the  United 
States  and  for  securing  to  them  a  national  existence. 
I  will  add  nothing  in  respect  to  the  demand  for  money 
which  has  been  made  upon  us  ;  you  may  well  judge  if 
conduct  like  this  encourages  us  to  make  demonstrations 
of  our  liberality.'  l 

1  The  letters  of  Vergennes  to  matic  Correspondence,  and  also 
Franklin  and  to  Luzerne  are  in  Franklin's  Works,  ix.  449, 
printed  in  the  American  Diplo-  450,  452-456. 


476    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xv. 

Franklin,  who  was  most  anxious  to  retain  both  for 
his  country  and  for  himself  the  good  opinion  of  France, 
answered  the  remonstrance  of  Vergennes  in  a  very 
apologetical  strain.  He  admitted  that  the  commis- 
sioners had  *  been  guilty  of  neglecting  a  point  of 
Uenseance ; '  but  he  urged  that  *  nothing  had  been 
agreed  to  in  the  preliminaries  contrary  to  the  interests 
of  France,'  that  the  articles  were  merely  provisional, 
and  that  no  peace  could  take  place  between  America 
and  England  till  peace  had  also  been  made  between 
France  and  England.  He  expressed  the  most  lively 
gratitude  to  the  French  king,  and  his  hope  i  that  the 
great  work,  which  has  hitherto  been  so  happily  con- 
ducted, is  so  nearly  brought  to  perfection,  and  is  so 
glorious  to  his  reign,  will  not  be  ruined  by  a  single  in- 
discretion of  ours.  And  certainly,'  he  added,  *  the  whole 
edifice  sinks  to  the  ground  immediately,  if  you  refuse 
on  that  account  to  give  us  any  further  assistance.' l 

This  hope  was  fulfilled.  France  had  already  resolved 
to  grant  America  a  new  loan,  though  her  own  finances 
were  strained  almost  to  the  uttermost.  She  did  not 
allow  the  conduct  of  the  Americans  to  alter  her  deter- 
mination, and  a  few  days  after  the  correspondence  I 
have  quoted,  six  millions  of  livres  were  granted.  At 
the  same  time  Vergennes  wrote  very  earnestly  to  Lu- 
zerne  urging  him  to  impress  upon  Congress  that  it  was 
by  no  means  certain  that  peace  had  as  yet  been  finally 
attained.2  It  was  plain  that  Shelburne's  Ministry 
would  not  last,  and  there  was  much  reason  to  fear  that 
Fox  if  he  came  to  power  would  be  disposed  to  continue 
the  war  with  France  provided  he  could  make  peace 
with  America.  The  fear  that  had  long  haunted  Ver- 
gennes, that  America  might  be  detached  from  the 
alliance,  and  that  the  whole  power  of  England  might 

>  Franklin's  Works,  ix.  451.  2  Ibid.  pp.  456,  457. 


en.  xv.    MOTIVES   OF  THE  AMERICAN  COMMISSIONERS.   477 

be  employed  in  a  prolonged  war  against  her  European 
adversaries,  was  not  even  yet  entirely  dispelled.1 

It  suited  the  purpose  of  Franklin  to  represent  the 
conduct  of  the  commissioners  in  signing  the  prelimi- 
nary articles  without  the  knowledge  of  the  French 
ministers  as  a  simple  failure  of  courtesy,  the  omission 
of  a  diplomatic  formality  which  ought  to  have  been 
observed,  but  which  was  of  no  practical  importance.  It 
is  obvious  that  this  view  was  not  the  true  one,  and  it 
is  equally  obvious  from  the  letters  of  the  commissioners 
to  their  own  Government  that  they  were  perfectly  aware 
of  the  real  importance  of  what  they  had  done.  Two  of 
the  commissioners  had  conceived  a  profound  distrust  of 
the  French  Minister.2  They  believed  that  Rayneval  had 
been  sent  to  England  to  retard  or  prevent  the  recog- 
nition of  American  independence,  that  the  French 
Ministers  desired  to  keep  America  in  permanent  and 
humiliating  dependence,  and  that  they  were  acting 
falsely  and  treacherously  towards  her.  For  the  charge 
of  treachery  there  was  no  foundation.  The  indepen- 
dence of  the  Americans  had  been  the  steady  aim  of 
France ;  she  was  not  in  the  least  disposed  to  abandon 
it,  and  although  Vergennes  desired  to  increase  the  in- 

1  See  a  remarkable  letter  of  by    his    son,  and   the  Life  of 
Montmorin    to    Vergennes     de-  Adams,  by  his  grandson.     With 
tailing   his   argument   with  the  these    should  be   compared  the 
Spanish     Minister    (March    30,  commentary    of      Mr.     Sparks, 
1782).— Circourt,  iii.  326-328.  American     Diplomatic     Corre- 

2  Jay's  views  on  the  subject  spondence,  viii.  208,  212.     See, 
are  very  fully  put.  forward  in  a  too,  among  more  recent  works, 
long  letter  to  Livingston  (Ameri-  the  Appendix  to  the  third  volume 
can  Diplomatic  Correspondence,  of  the   Digest  of  International 
vixi.  129-208),  and  the  similar  Law,  by  F.  Wharton  (Washing- 
views  of  Adams  are  expressed  in  ton,  1887),  and  an  Address  on 
several  letters  in  the  same  col-  the  Peace  Negotiations  of  1782- 
lection.    Both  Jay  and  Adams  1783  before  the  New  York  His- 
have  found  powerful  defenders  torical    Society    by    John    Jay, 
in  their    descendants  and  bio-  printed  with  copious  illustrations 
graphers.     See  the  Life  of  Jay,  in  1884. 


478    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  CH.  xv. 

fluence  of  his  own  country  by  a  balance  of  power  in 
America,  he  does  not  appear  to  have  opposed  American 
interests  on  any  point  on  which  he  had  ever  promised 
to  support  them.  France  was,  however,  endeavouring, 
as  the  principal  member  of  a  great  coalition,  to  make 
peace,  and  she  was  seeking  to  reconcile  many  conflict- 
ing interests  and  to  satisfy  many  conflicting  claims.  It 
is  undoubtedly  true  that  she  desired  that  America  should 
make  a  serious  sacrifice  of  her  prospects  for  the  benefit 
of  the  other  belligerents,  and  especially  of  Spain. 

The  publication  of  the  diplomatic  correspondence  of 
Vergennes  shows  that  his  relations  with  the  Spanish 
Government  were  at  this  time  very 'embarrassing.  Flo- 
rida Blanca,  who  directed  Spanish  politics,  looked  upon 
American  independence  with  scarcely  concealed  detes- 
tation. He  clearly  saw  the  danger  of  the  precedent  to 
all  colonial  Powers,  and  there  were  already  serious  dis- 
turbances in  several  parts  of  Spanish  America.1  The 
failure  of  nearly  all  the  special  objects  of  Spanish  am- 
bition had  greatly  irritated  him,  and  after  the  defeat  of 
the  attack  upon  Gibraltar  he  was  betrayed  into  some 
very  ungenerous  and  unwarrantable  insinuations  di- 
rected against  the  French  soldiers  who  had  taken  part 
in  the  siege.2  Vergennes  showed  some  natural  resent- 
ment, but  he  had  no  wish  to  throw  away  the  Spanish 
alliance,  and  every  wish  to  gratify  his  ally.  If  his  policy 
had  been  carried  out  it  seems  clear  that  he  would  have 
established  a  claim  for  concessions  from  England  by 
supporting  her  against  America  on  the  questions  of 
Canada  and  the  Canadian  border  and  the  Newfoundland 
fishery,  and  that  he  would  have  partially  compensated 
Spain  for  her  failure  before  Gibraltar  by  obtaining  for 
her  a  complete  ascendency  upon  the  Mississippi.  The 


1  See  the  letters  of  Vergennes       319,  320,  323-328. 
lo     Montmorin.— Circourt,     iii.          2  Ibid.  pp.  329,  330. 


CH.    XV. 


SUCCESS   OF   THE   AMERICANS.  479 


success  of  such,  a  policy  would  have  been  extremely  dis- 
pleasing to  the  Congress,  and  Jay  and  Adams  defeated 
it.  Franklin  very  reluctantly  acquiesced  in  the  secret 
signature.  Livingston,  writing  from  America,  strongly 
blamed  it,  and  expressed  his  conviction  that  the  sus- 
picions of  the  commissioners  were  unfounded.  But  the 
act  was  done,  and  if  it  can  be  justified  by  success,  that 
justification  at  least  is  not  wanting. 

The  separate  signature  appears  to  have  had  one  im- 
portant effect  upon  European  affairs.  The  cession  of 
Gibraltar  to  the  Spaniards  had  for  some  time  been 
seriously  considered  in  the  Cabinet,  and  Shelburne  him- 
self was  disposed  to  agree  to  it.  After  a  long  delibera- 
tion the  Cabinet  had  actually  resolved  to  exchange 
Gibraltar  for  Guadaloupe,  when  the  news  of  the  accom- 
plished peace  with  America  induced  them  to  reconsider 
their  determination.1 

It  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  with  the  skill, 
hardihood,  and  good  fortune  that  marked  the  American 
negotiation.  Everything  the  United  States  could  with 
any  shadow  of  plausibility  demand  from  England  they 
obtained,  and  much  of  what  they  obtained  was  granted 
them  in  opposition  to  the  two  great  Powers  by  whose 
assistance  they  had  triumphed.  The  conquests  of  France 
were  much  more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  financial 
ruin  which  impelled  her  with  giant  steps  to  revolution. 
The  acquisition  of  Minorca  and  Florida  by  Spain  was 
dearly  purchased  by  the  establishment  of  an  example 
which  before  long  deprived  her  of  her  own  colonies. 
Holland  received  an  almost  fatal  blow  by  the  losses  she 
incurred  during  the  war.  England  emerged  from  the 
struggle  with  a  diminished  empire  and  a  vastly  augmented 

1  Fitzmaurice's  Life  of  Slid-  est  extant  account  of  the  nego- 

burne,  iii.  305,  306,  314.    Lord  tiations  that  led  to  the  peace  o( 

Edmond  Fitzmaurice's  book  con-  17b3. 
tains,  I  think,  the  best  and  full- 


480    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.   CH.  xv. 

debt,  and  her  ablest  statesmen  believed  and  said  that 
the  days  of  her  greatness  were  over.  But  America, 
though  she  had  been  reduced  by  the  war  to  almost  the 
lowest  stage  of  impoverishment  and  impotence,  gained 
at  the  peace  almost  everything  that  she  desired,  and 
started  with  every  promise  of  future  greatness  upon  the 
mighty  career  that  was  before  her. 

The  part  of  the  treaty  with  England  which  excited 
most  severe  criticism  was  the  abandonment  of  the 
loyalists.  These  unfortunate  men  had,  indeed,  a  claim 
of  the  very  strongest  kind  to  the  protection  of  England, 
for  they  had  lost  everything  in  her  cause.  Some  had 
simply  fled  from  the  country  before  mob  violence,  and 
had  been  attainted  in  their  absence.  Others  had  actu- 
ally taken  up  arms,  and  they  had  done  so  at  the  express 
invitation  of  the  English  Government  and  of  English 
generals.  Their  abandonment  was  described  by  nearly 
all  the  members  of  the  Opposition  as  an  act  of  un- 
qualified baseness  which  would  leave  an  enduring  stain 
on  the  English  name.  *  What,'  said  Lord  North,  '  are 
not  the  claims  of  those  who,  in  conformity  to  their 
allegiance,  their  cheerful  obedience  to  the  voice  of 
Parliament,  their  confidence  in  the  proclamation  of  our 
generals,  invited  under  every  assurance  of  military, 
parliamentary,  political,  and  affectionate  protection, 
espoused  with  the  hazard  of  their  lives,  and  the  forfeiture 
of  their  properties,  the  cause  of  Great  Britain  ?  ' 1  It 
had  hitherto  nearly  always  been  the  custom  to  close  a 
struggle,  which  partook  largely  of  the  nature  of  civil 
war,  by  a  generous  act  of  amnesty  and  restitution.  At 
the  Peace  of  Miinster  a  general  act  of  indemnity  had 
been  passed,  and  the  partisans  of  the  Spanish  sovereign 
had  either  regained  their  confiscated  properties,  or  had 
been  indemnified  for  their  loss.  A  similar  measure  had 


Parl.  Hist,  xxiii.  452. 


ca.  xv.  THE   AMERICAN   LOYALISTS.  481 

been  exacted  in  favour  of  the  revolted  Catalans  by- 
France  at  the  Peace  of  the  Pyrenees,  and  by  England 
at  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  and  Spain  had  frankly  conceded 
it.  The  case  of  the  American  loyalists  was  a  still 
stronger  one,  and  the  Opposition  emphatically  main- 
tained that  the  omission  of  any  effectual  provision  for 
them  in  the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  '  unless  marked  by  the 
just  indignation  of  Parliament,  would  blast  for  ever  the 
honour  of  this  country.' 1 

This  charge  does  not  appear  to  me  to  be  a  just  one. 
It  is  evident  from  the  correspondence  which  has  now 
been  published  that  Shelburne  from  the  very  beginning 
of  the  negotiation  did  all  that  was  in  his  power  to 
obtain  the  restoration  of  the  loyalists  to  their  civil  rights 
and  to  their  properties.  He  directed  Oswald  to  make 
their  claims  an  article  of  the  first  importance.  He  re- 
peatedly threatened  to  break  off  the  whole  negotiation 
if  it  were  not  conceded,  and  he  suggested  more  than 
one  way  in  which  it  might  be  accomplished.  Savannah 
and  Charleston  had,  indeed,  been  evacuated  ;  but  New 
York  was  in  the  hands  of  the  English  till  the  peace,  and 
they  might  reasonably  ask  for  a  compensation  to  the 
loyalists  as  the  price  of  its  surrender.  A  vast  amount 
of  territory  to  the  south  of  Canada,  and  to  the  east  of 
the  Mississippi,  had  been  conceded  to  the  United  States 
to  which  they  had  very  little  claim,  and  it  was  proposed 
by  the  English  that  lands  in  the  uninhabited  country 
should  be  sold,  and  that  a  fund  should  be  formed  to 
compensate  the  loyalists.  Yergennes  strenuously  sup- 
ported Shelburne,  and  urged,  as  a  matter  of  justice  and 
humanity,  that  the  Americans  should  grant  an  amnesty 
and  a  restoration.  As  far  as  can  now  be  judged,  his 
motives  appear  to  have  been  those  of  a  humane  and 
honourable  man.  He  knew  that  the  loyalists  represented 

1  Annual  Register,  1783,  p.  164. 


482    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,   cs.  u.v. 

tlie  real  opinions  of  a  very  large  section  of  the  American 
people,  and  that  he  was  himself  mainly  responsible  for 
their  ruin.  If  France  had  not  drawn  the  sword,  there 
is  little  doubt  that  they  would  still  have  been  the 
leading  class  in  America.  The  intervention,  however, 
of  Vergennes  was  attributed  by  Jay  and  Adams  to  the 
most  malevolent  and  Machiavellian  motives,1  and  the 
time  had  passed  when  a  French  minister  could  greatly 
influence  American  councils.  The  commissioners  took 
their  stand  upon  the  constitutional  ground  that  Con- 
gress had  no  power  to  grant  what  was  demanded,  for 
the  loyalists  had  been  attainted  by  particular  Acts  of 
particular  State  legislatures,  and  it  was  only  these  legis- 
latures that  could  restore  them.  That  there  was  no 
disposition  in  America  to  do  so  they  honestly  admitted. 
Franklin,  whose  own  son  was  a  distinguished  and  very 
honourable  loyalist,  was  conspicuous  for  his  vindictive- 
ness  against  the  class,  and  he  even  tried  to  persuade  the 
English  negotiators  that  the  loyalists  had  no  claim  upon 
England,  for  their  misrepresentations  had  led  her  to 
prolong  the  war.2  The  loyalist  question  was  one  of  those 
on  which  the  three  commissioners  were  cordially  united, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  they  represented  the  domi- 
nant party  in  America. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  was  necessary  to  yield. 
It  would,  no  doubt,  have  been  possible  to  have  continued 
the  war  solely  upon  this  ground  ;  but  a  year  of  hostili- 
ties would  cost  much  more  than  would  have  been  re- 
quired as  compensation,  and  it  would  have  inflamed  the 
American  hatred  of  the  loyalists  to  madness.  Once  the 
independence  of  America  was  recognised,  it  was  not  in 
the  power  of  England  to  provide  that  they  should  live 


1  See     American    Diplomatic       Loyalists,  94-97. 
Correspondence,     vi.     453-457  ;  2  Franklin's  Works,  ix.  315. 

viii.    207.      Sabine's    American 


CH.  xv.  THE   AMERICAN   LOYALISTS.  483 

securely  among  a  hostile  population  and  under  a  hostile 
Government.  The  Americans  clearly  saw  that  England 
could  not  enforce  the  claims  of  the  loyalists,  and  they 
therefore  persisted  in  resisting  them.  Congress  directed 
the  commissioners  to  enter  into  no  engagement  respect- 
ing loyalists  unless  Great  Britain  promised  compensation 
for  losses  caused  to  private  persons  by  persons  in  her 
service  during  the  war.  The  recommendation  it  ulti- 
mately made,  in  accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  treaty, 
to  the  State  legislatures  in  favour  of  the  loyalists  was 
probably  always  intended  to  be  a  dead  letter.  The 
Legislature  of  South  Carolina  took  some  honourable  and 
generous  steps  to  heal  the  breach ; l  but  in  general 
popular  feeling  showed  itself  after  the  peace  in  the 
highest  degree  rancorous  towards  all  who  were  suspected 
of  Tory  opinions.  The  loyalists  whose  properties  had 
been  confiscated,  or  who  had  been  banished  by  acts  of 
attainder,  formed  but  a  small  proportion  of  the  known 
sympathisers  with  the  old  Government.  Mob  violence, 
however,  and  many  forms  of  injustice,  made  life  almost 
intolerable  for  them  in  their  homes,  and  emigration  to 
British  territory  took  place  on  a  scale  which  had  been 
hardly  paralleled  since  the  Huguenots.  It  has  been 
estimated,  apparently  on  good  authority,  that  in  the  two 
provinces  of  Nova  Scotia  and  New  Brunswick  alone, 
the  loyalist  emigrants  and  their  families  amounted  to 
not  less  than  35,000  persons,  and  that  the  total  number 
of  refugees  cannot  have  been  much  less  than  100,000. 2 

Many  reasons  conspired  to  strengthen  the  determina- 
tion of  the  Americans  to  resist  all  demands  in  favour  of 


1  Sabine's  American  Loyalists,  and  New  Brunswick  is  made  by 
pp.  86, 87.  Mr.    de    Lancey,   the  editor   of 

2  Jones'sHistoryofNew  York,  Judge  Jones's  Life,  from  a  care- 
ii.  259-268,  500-509.     The  esti-  ful  examination  of  the  records  at 
mate  of  the  number  of  emigrants  Halifax. 

who  took  refuge  in  Nova  Scotia 


484:    ENGLAND  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,   ca.  xv. 

the  loyalists.  The  civil  war  between  Whigs  and  Tories 
had,  as  we  have  seen,  been  much  more  savage  than  the 
war  between  the  English  and  the  Americans ;  and  the 
revolutionary  party  attributed  with  some  reason  the  long 
continuance  of  the  struggle  to  the  existence  and  to  the 
representations  of  the  great  loyalist  party  in  America. 
The  power  of  Congress  was  still  extremely  uncertain ; 
there  was  much  difficulty  in  inducing  the  States  to  obey 
its  mandates,  and  the  restoration  of  the  most  active  and 
enterprising  leaders  of  the  party  disaffected  to  the  new 
state  of  things  might  be  very  dangerous.  The  country 
was  exhausted  and  impoverished  and  in  no  mood  to  pay 
anything,  and  strong  personal  and  class  interests  were 
hostile  to  a  restoration.  The  loyalists  to  a  great  extent 
sprang  from  and  represented  the  old  gentry  of  the 
country.  The  prospect  of  seizing  their  property  had 
been  one  great  motive  which  induced  many  to  enter 
into  the  war.  The  owners  of  the  confiscated  property 
now  grasped  the  helm.  New  men  exercised  the  social 
influence  of  the  old  families,  and  they  naturally  dreaded 
the  restoration  of  those  whom  they  had  displaced. 

It  remained  for  England  to  discharge  her  obligations 
to  her  exiled  partisans.  In  1782  and  for  some  years 
later,  regular  annuities  amounting  to  a  little  more  than 
40,OOOZ.  a  year  were  granted  as  compensation  to  loyalists, 
but  this  sum  was  distributed  among  only  315  persons. 
Additional  sums,  amounting  to  between  17,OOOZ.  and 
18,OOOZ.  a  year,  were  granted  occasionally,  and  for  par- 
ticular or  occasional  losses,1  and  it  was  agreed  that 
officers  who  had  served  as  volunteers  in  provincial  regi- 
ments in  America  should  receive  half-pay.2  When  it 
had  become  clear  that  the  States  would  not  listen  to  the 


1  Wilmot's  Historical  View  of  bine's  American  Loyalists,  pp. 

the  Commission  for  Enquiring  70,  71. 

into  the  Losses  and  Claims  of  a  Parl.  Hist,  xxiii.  1050-1058. 
the  Loyalists,  pp.  15,  16.    Sa- 


CH.  xv.        WEAKNESS    OF    SHELBUENE's    MINISTRY.  485 

recommendation  of  Congress  to  restore  the  loyalists  to 
their  estates,  an  Act  was  carried  authorizing  the  appoint- 
ment of  commissioners  to  inquire  into  the  circumstances 
and  former  fortunes  of  persons  who  were  reduced  to  dis- 
tress by  the  American  troubles.  The  inquiry  dragged 
on  slowly  for  several  years.  Miserable  stories  were  told 
of  hearts  and  minds  that  broke  under  the  prolonged 
suspense  of  once  affluent  loyalists  who  were  driven  to 
suicide  and  insanity,  or  were  languishing  in  a  debtor's 
gaol.  In  1788  the  subject  was  again  discussed  in 
Parliament,  and  in  1790  it  was  brought  to  a  conclusion. 
The  claimants  in  England,  Nova  Scotia,  New  Bruns- 
wick, and  Canada  were  5,072,  of  whom  954  either  with- 
drew or  failed  to  establish  their  claims.  Among  the 
remainder  about  3,110,000£.  was  distributed.  When 
it  is  added  that  many  had  received  annuities,  half -pay 
as  military  officers,  grants  of  land  from  the  Crown  and 
special  favours  in  the  distribution  of  ordinary  patron- 
age, it  will  not,  I  think,  appear  that  England  showed 
herself  ungrateful  to  her  friends.1 

1  Sabine,  pp.  107-112. 


NOTES. 


Page  8.  For  a  discussion  of  the  different  forms  of  government 
in  the  colonies,  for  "  a  sketch  of  their  charters,  constitutional  his- 
tory, and  ante-revolutionary  jurisprudence,"  see  Story's  Com- 
mentaries on  the  Constitution,  pp.  3-83,  especially  pp.  67  et  seq. 

For  a  recent  and  very  useful  treatment  of  this  subject,  con- 
sult Hinsdale's  The  American  Government,  ch.  ii.,  "  How  the  Colo- 
nies were  Governed,"  pp.  36-51. 

Page  25.  On  the  system  of  entails  in  Virginia,  consult  Jeffer- 
son's Autobiography,  Writings,  vol.  i.  See  also  liandall's  Life  of 
Jefferson  and  Rives's  Life  of  Madison. 

Page  27,  line  9.  For  Burke's  famous  passage  on  this  subject 
see  his  Speech  on  Conciliation  with  America.  Works,  vol.  i.  pp. 
181,  182,  Payne's  edition. 

Page  28.  For  Patrick  Henry's  agency  in  the  "  Parson V> 
Cause,"  see  Fiske's  American  Revolution,  vol.  i.  p.  18 ;  Tyler's 
Life  of  Henry,  ch.  iv. ;  Writings  of  Henry \  edited  by  William 
Wirt  Henry.  Mahon's  History  of  England  (vol.  v.  pp.  89-91)  has 
an  interesting  passage  on  the  character  of  Henry,  apparently 
based  on  Wirt's  Life  of  Henry. 

Page  40.  For  farther  discussion  of  the  relation  of  the  colonies 
to  the  Crown  and  to  Parliament,  the  allegiance  and  rights  of  the 
colonies,  and  the  prerogatives  of  the  Crown  and  the  authority  of 
Parliament,  see  Story,  Commentaries  on  the  Constitution,  ch.  xvii., 
on  "  General  Review"  of  the  Colonies  "  ;  Chamberlain,  The  Revolu- 
tion Impending,  in  Winsor's  Narrative  and  Critical  History,  vol. 
vi. ;  Knox's  Controversy  between  the  Colonies  and  the  Mother 
Country. 

Page  42.  Summarise  the  "  chief  restrictions  of  the  commer- 
cial code."  See  the  very  valuable  passage  in  Lecky's  England  in 
the  Eighteenth  Century,  vol.  ii.  ch.  v.  pp.  8-12  ;  also  Miss  Eleanor 
L.  Lord's  Industrial  Experiments  in  the  British  Colonies  of 
North  America,  Johns  Hopkins  University  Studies,  extra  vol. 
xvii. 

Consider  the  Navigation  Acts  in  this  connection. 
486 


NOTES.  487 

The  mercantile  theory  and  the  commercial  policy  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  suggest  a  subject  very  worthy  of  extended  study. 
Lecky,  in  the  passage  referred  to,  says  : 

"The  real  evil  of  the  colonies  lay  in  the  commercial  policy  of  the 
mother  country,  in  the  system  of  restrictions  intended  to  secure  for  Eng- 
land a  monopoly  of  the  colonial  trade,  and  to  crush  every  manufacture 
that  could  compete  with  English  industry.  It  was  a  policy  which 
sprang,  in  a  great  degree,  from  that  mercantile  theory  which  denied  the 
possibility  of  a  commerce  mutually  beneficial  to  the  parties  engaged  in 
it.  It  was  strengthened  by  the  ^Revolution  [of  1688],  which  gave  com- 
mercial classes  a  new  pre-eminence  in  English  legislation,  and  it  had 
political  consequences  of  the  gravest  character." — Vol.  ii.  p.  8,  edition 
of  1878. 

The  following  is  a  notable  passage  of  Adam  Smith  on  the  in- 
fluence of  the  mercantile  system  on  colonial  attachments  : 

"  The  policy  of  Europe,  therefore,  has  very  little  to  boast  of,  either  in 
the  original  establishment,  or,  as  far  as  concerns  their  internal  govern- 
ment, in  the  subsequent  prosperity  of  the  colonies  of  America.  .  .  .  Upon 
all  these  clitferent  occasions  [of  settlements]  it  was  not  the  wisdom  and 
policy,  but  the  disorder  and  injustice,  of  the  European  governments 
which  peopled  and  cultivated  America.  '  When  those  establishments 
were  effectuated  and  had  become  so  considerable  as  to  attract  the  atten- 
tion of  the  mother  country,  the  first  regulations  which  she  made  with 
regard  to  them  had  always  in  view  to  secure  to  herself  the  monopoly  of 
their  commerce,  to  confine  their  market,  and  to  enlarge  her  own  at  their 
expense ;  and,  consequently,  rather  to  damp  and  discourage  than  to 
quicken  and  forward  the  course  of  their  prosperity.  In  the  different 
ways  in  which  this  monopoly  has  been  exercised  consists  one  of  the 
most  essential  differences  in  the  policy  of  the  different  European  nations 
with  regard  to  their  colonies.  The  test  of  them  all,  that  of  England,  is 
only  somewhat  less  illiberal  and  oppressive  than  that  of  any  of  the  rest." 
— Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations,  bookiv.  ch.  vii.  Cited  by  Massey,  History 
of  England,  vol.  i.'p.  195. 

On  this  subject  see  also  Pitkin's  Civil  and  Political  History 
of  the  United  States,  vol.  i.  pp.  93-106,  the  latter  half  of  ch.  iii. 

Probably  the  best  single  study  on  this  subject  is  The  Com- 
mercial Policy  of  England  toward  the  American  Colonies,  by 
George  Louis  Beers,  in  the  Columbia  University  Studies  in  His- 
tory, Economics,  and  Public  Law,  vol.  iii.  No.  2,  1893;  notice 
especially  pp.  43-45  and  66-70;  consult,  also,  Prof.  H.  L.  Os- 
good's  articles  on  The  Colonial  Corporation,  in  the  '•  Political 
Science  Quarterly  "  for  1896. 

Pages  60,  61.  The  Revolution  was  preceded  by  a  hot  party 
controversy,  and  the  partisans  and  disputants  used  heated  terms 
in  describing  one  another.  The  colonists  were  "  rioters,"  "  incen- 
diaries," "  rebels,"  and  "  traitors  " ;  the  British  and  Tories  were 
"  despots  "  and  "  tyrants."  A  dispassionate  examination  into  the 
merits  of  the  controversy,  while  dispelling  these  false  and  harm- 
ful impressions,  will,  we  believe,  vindicate  the  party  of  American 
independence.  John  Adams  sets  forth  with  boldness  and  with 
some  heat  the  American  patriot  feeling  of  that  day : 


488  NOTES. 

"Every  man  of  every  character  who,  by  voting,  writing,  speaking,  or 
otherwise,  had  favoured  the  Stamp  Act,  the  Tea  Act,  and  every  other 
measure  of  a  minister  or  governor  who  they  knew  was  aiming  at  the  de- 
struction of  their  form  of  government  and  introducing  parliamentary 
taxation,  was  uniformly,  in  some  department  or  other,  promoted  to  some 
place  of  honour  or  profit  for  ten  years  together;  arid,  on  the  other  hand, 
every  man  who  favoured  the  people  in  their  opposition  to  those  innova- 
tions was  depressed,  degraded,  and  persecuted,  so  far  as  it  was  in  the 
power  of  the  Government  to  do  it. 

"  This  they  considered  as  a  systematical  means  of  encouraging  every 
man  of  abilities  to  espouse  the  cause  of  parliamentary  taxation  and  the 
plan  of  destroying  their  charter  privileges,  and  to  discourage  all  from 
exerting  themselves  in  opposition  to  them.  This  they  thought  a  plan  to 
enslave  them,  for  they  uniformly  think  that  the  destruction  of  their 
charter,  making  the  council  and  judges  wholly  dependent  on  the  Crown, 
and  the  people  subject  to  the  unlimited  power  of  Parliament  as  their 
supreme  legislative,  is  slavery. — Novanglus,  written  in  1774.  Adams's 
Works,  vol.  iv.  pp.  53,  54.  Read  further  in  this  work  for  colonial  vindi- 
cation. 

Page  62.  The  "  constitutional  competence  of  Parliament  to 
tax  the  colonies  "  suggests  a  most  interesting  topic  to  the  student. 
Was  the  taxing  policy  "  a  departure  from  the  old  system  of  gov- 
ernment in  the  colonies  "  f  Were  the  Americans  standing  for  old 
rights  which  were  being  violated  ?  Were  our  fathers  seeking  to 
preserve  an  old  constitution  or  to  impose  a  new  one  ?  Were  they 
conservators  or  innovators  f  Upon  the  answer  to  such  questions 
depends,  in  a  measure,  the  justice  of  their  course,  and  whether  or 
not  their  movement  was  of  the  essence  of  revolution  and  rebellion. 
Speaking  for  the  Americans,  John  Adams  insisted  that  they  were 
not  rebels. 

"  Opposition,  nay,  open,  avowed  resistance  by  arms  against  usurpa- 
tion and  lawless  violence  is  not  rebellion  by  the  law  of  God  or  the  land. 
Resistance  to  lawful  authority  makes  rebellion.  Hampden,  Russell,  Sid- 
ney, Somers,  Holt,  Tillotson,  Burnet,  Hoadley,  etc.,  were  no  tyrants  nor 
rebels,  although  some  of  them  were  in  arms  and  the  others  undoubtedly 
excited  resistance." —  Works,  iv.  57, 58. 

"  Shame  on  the  American  who  calls  the  Stamp  Act  law." — Wendell 
Phillips,  Speech  on  the  Murder  of  Lovejoy*. 

"  The  fact  of  the  case  is  that  the  American  leaders,  as  soon  as  they 
awoke  to  a  realising  sense  of  the  power  which  lay  at  the  centre  of  the  old 
Constitution  of  the  British  Empire,  demanded  a  new  constitution — one  in 
which  Parliament,  by  solemn  agreement  and  enactment,  should  set  a 
limit  to  the  exercise  of  its  powers.  But  in  their  arguments  and  in  their 
acts  they  ignored  the  fact  that  Parliament  had  never  set  any  such  limit, 
and  they  conducted  themselves  as  if  they  were  already  living  under  the 
new  constitution  which  they  desired.  Hence  arose  the  revolutionary 
character  of  their  argument.  It  was  meant  for  a  constitution  other  than 
the  one  which  actually  existed.  The  loyalists  were  the  party  who  dis- 
cussed the  issues  on  the  basis  of  the  existing  Constitution,  and  were  there- 
fore the  constitutionalists  of  the  time." — Prof.  H.  L.  Osgood,  in  Political, 
Science  Quarterly,  March,  1898. 

It  will  be  seen  from  Mr.  Lecky's  pages  that  he  rejects  this 
view,  and  is  more  in  accord  with  the  usual  view  of  American 


NOTES. 


489 


writers  on  the  subject.  See,  also,  Burke,  Chatham,  and  Franklin 
for  a  vindication  of  the  constitutionalism  of  the  American  posi- 
tion. Also  Professor  Tyler,  whose  book  Professor  Osgood  is  re- 
viewing, in  the  chapter  on  Dickinson,  says : 

"  Dickinson  relies  oil  English  principles  with  which  to  oppose  Eng- 
lish aggressions ;  conservative,  with  a  natural  opposition  to  all  change 
that  violated  the  sequences  of  established  law,  he  would  show  the  Eng- 
lish people  that  it  was  their  own  rulers  and  not  the  Americans  who  were 
violating  the  Constitution ;  that  the  demands  of  the  Americans,  so  far 
from  being  the  spawn  of  a  factious  or  revolutionary  temper,  were  derived 
immediately  from  the  records,  statutes,  law  books,  and  most  approved 
writers  of  our  mother  country — those  '  dead  but  most  faithful  counsellors 
who  cannot  be  daunted  by  fear,  nor  muzzled  by  affection,  reward,  or 
hope  of  preferment,  and  therefore  may  be  safely  believed.'  .  .  .  Never- 
theless, in  1775,  events  occurred  which  gave  a  different  aspect  to  the 
whole  dispute,  and  swept  an  apparent  majority  of  the  American  people 
quite  beyond  the  sphere  of  such  ideas  and  methods.  John  Dickinson's 
concession  to  Parliament  of  a  legislative  authority  over  us,  even  to  a 
limited  extent,  was  roughly  discarded ;  instead  of  which  was  enthroned 
among  us  the  unhistoric  and  makeshift  doctrine  that  American  alle- 
giance was  due  not  at  all  to  Parliament,  but  to  the  Crown  only." — Liter- 
ary History  of  the  American  Revolution,  vol.  ii.  pp.  29,  33. 

It  will  appear  to  the  judicial  student  of  these  times  that  in 
this  constitutional  controversy  (as  in  most  others),  at  least  in  all 
its  stages,  neither  party  was  wholly  right  nor  wholly  wrong.  As 
the  Americans  changed  their  ground,  as  they  advanced  from  the 
position  of  1765-1766  to  that  of  1775-1776,  they  assumed  the  atti- 
tude which  Professor  Osgood  describes,  and  their  movement  ceased 
to  be  constitutional  and  became  revolutionary.  But  this  revolu- 
tionary advance  was  the  inevitable  outcome  of  a  just  constitutional 
struggle.  The  issues  of  that  struggle  were  momentous.  To  these 
issues  American  students  should  never  permit  themselves  to  be 
indifferent,  though  they  should  always  seek  to  be  impartial. 

Page  65.  The  seventeen  colo'nies  included  Canada  and  the 
West  Indian  Plantations.  "  The  other  North  American  colonies, 
more  possibly  from  a  consciousness  of  weakness  than  a  principle 
of  duty,  though  they  could  by  no  means  form  the  same  preten- 
sions to  independence  as  being  either  conquered  countries  or 
countries  settled  at  the  expense  of  the  British  Government, 
thought  proper  to  submit,  but  not  all  with  equal  grace."  There 
was  resistance  and  opposition  in  St.  Christopher's  and  Nevis,  in 
the  West  Indies,  stirred  by  tire  crews  of  New  England  vessels. — 
The  Annual  Register  for  1765,  p.  56. 

Page  67.  Deferring  the  stamp  tax  for  a  year  was  afterwards 
seen  by  the  Tory  politicians  to  have  been  a  mistake,  as  merely 
offering  time  to  the  colonists  to  arouse  and  organise  opposition. 

Page  70.  For  the  long  series  of  resolutions  and  addresses  to 
Parliament  and  comments  thereon,  consult  Force's  American 
Archives,  Almon's  Prior  Documents,  the  Colonial  Records,  The 
Annual  Register,  1764  and  1765. 


490  NOTES. 

Page  73.  For  a  copy  of  the  Stamp  Act  nse  the  American 
History  Leaflet,  No.  21  (Lovell  &  Co.,  New  York).  For  the  Dec- 
laration of  Rights  of  the  Stamp  Act  Congress,  see  Hart's  Amer- 
ican History  by  Contemporaries,  vol.  ii.  pp.  402-404. 

Page  76.  This  passage  from  Lecky  deserves  distinction  as  a 
generous  recognition  of  the  soundness  of  the  principle  underly- 
ing the  American  cause. 

Page  77.  For  the  English  view  and  argument  on  representa- 
tion, see  Channing's  Student's  History  of  the  United  States,  pp. 
162-166 ;  and  Tyler's  Literary  History  of  the  American  Revolu- 
tion, vol.  i.  pp.  104-106,  for  Dulany's  statement  of  and  answer  to 
the  view  of  "  virtual  representation." 

Page  121.  On  the  character  and  work  of  Samuel  Adams  con- 
sult, in  addition  to  Lecky,  Wells's  Life  of  Samuel  Adams,  Hos- 
mer's  Life  of  Samuel  Adams,  Hutchinson's  History  of  Massa- 
chusetts, Tyler's  Literary  History  of  the  American  Revolution, 
vol.  ii.  ch.  xxiv.  pp.  1-16. 

Page  133.  On  the  tea  duty,  see  an  article  in  the  American 
Historical  Review  for  January,  1898. 

Page  137.  Compare  this  with  Bancroft's  account  of  the 
"  Affair  of  the  Gaspee."  "  Dudingston  seconded  the  insolence  of 
his  superior  officer,  insulted  the  inhabitants,  plundered  the  islands 
of  sheep  and  hogs,  cut  down  trees,  fired  at  market  boats,  de- 
tained vessels  without  a  colourable  pretext,  and  made  illegal 
seizures  of  goods  of  which  the  recovery  cost  more  than  they  were 
worth.  .  .  .  The  whole  affair  was  conducted  on  a  sudden  impulse." 
— Bancroft,  vol.  iii.  pp.  414,  415. 

Page  138.  For  the  work  of  the  colonial  committees  of  cor- 
respondence— a  work  of  first  importance — consult  Wells's  Life  of 
Samuel  Adams.  See  Index  and  Table  of  Contents. 

Page  151.  Of  this  scene  before  the  Privy  Council  and  Wed- 
derburn's  speech,  Franklin  says : 

"  The  Solicitor-General  then  went  into  what  he  called  a  history  of  the 
province  for  the  last  ten  years,  and  bestowed  plenty  of  abuse  upon  it, 
mingled  with  encomium  on  the  governors.  But  the  favourite  part  of  his 
discourse  was  levelled  at  your  agent,  who  stood  there  the  butt  of  his  in- 
vective ribaldry  for  near  an  hour,  not  a  single  lord  adverting  to  the  im- 
propriety and  indecency  of  treating  a  public  messenger  in  so  ignomini- 
ous a  manner  who  was  present  only  as  the  person  delivering  your 
petition,  with  the  consideration  of  which  no  part  of  Ms  conduct  had  any 
concern.  If  he  had  done  a  wrong  in  obtaining  and  transmitting  the 
letters,  that  was  not  the  tribunal  where  he  was  to  be  accused  and  tried. 
The  cause  was  already  before  the  Chancellor.  Not  one  of  their  lordships 
checked  and  recalled  the  orator  to  the  business  before  them,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  a  very  few  excepted,  they  seemed  to  enjoy  highly  the  enter- 
tainment, and  frequently  burst  out  in  loud  applause.  ...  It  may  be  sup- 
posed that  I  was  very  angry  on  this  occasion,  and  therefore  I  did  pur- 
pose to  add  no  reflections  of  mine  on  the  treatment  the  Assembly  and 
their  agent  have  received,  lest  they  should  he  thought  the  effects  of  re- 
sentment and  a  desire  of  exasperating.  But,  indeed,  what  I  feel  on  my 


NOTES.  491 

own  account  is  half  lost  in  what  I  feel  for  the  public.  When  I  see  that 
all  petitions  and  complaints  of  grievances  are  so  odious  to  Government 
that  even  the  mere  pipe  which  conveys  them  becomes  obnoxious,  I  am 
at  a  loss  to  know  how  peace  and  union  are  to  be  maintained  or  restored 
between  the  different  parts  of  the  Empire.  Grievances  cannot  be  re- 
dressed unless  they  are  known,  and  they  cannot  be  known  but  through 
complaints  and  petitions.  If  these  are  deemed  affronts  and  the  messen- 
gers punished  as  offenders,  who  will  henceforth  send  petitions  ?  It  has 
been  thought  a  dangerous  thing  in  any  State  to  stop  up  the  vents  of 
griefs.  Wise  governments  have  therefore  generally  received  petitions 
with  some  indulgence,  even  when  but  slightly  founded.  Those  who 
think  themselves  injured  by  their  rulers  are  sometimes,  by  a  mild  and 
prudent  answer,  convinced  of  their  error.  But  where  complaining  is  a 
crime,  hope  becomes  despair." — Bigelow's  Life  of  Franklin  from  Ms 
Own  Writings,  vol.  ii.  pp.  196-198. 


pp. 

See  the  report  of  Franklin's  examination  at  the  Council  Cham- 
ber— "The  Hearing  at  the  Cockpit" — January  11,  1774,  and 
Franklin's  own  account  of  the  transactions  relating  to  the  Hutch- 
inson  Letters  in  Bigelow's  Franklin,  vol.  ii.  pp.  200-238.  See, 
also,  Considerations  on  the  Measures  Relating  to  the  Colonies, 
American  Archives,  4th  series,  vol.  i.  pp.  1399-1402. 

"  It  was  then  the  usage  for  the  Council  to  meet  in  one  of  the  rooms 
of  a  building  which  passed  by  the  name  of  the  '  Cockpit.' .  Around  the 
fire  and  down  the  sides  of  the  long  table  had  often  been  gathered  many 
famous  men.  But  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the  room  had  ever 
held  a  company  quite  so  distinguished  as  that  assemblage  to  hear  the 
agent  of  the  colony  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  insulted,  browbeaten,  ma- 
ligned, and  defamed.  In  that  room  had  been  done  many  acts  shameful 
alike  to  the  English  Government  and  to  Englishmen.  But  none  went 
down  to  such  a  depth  of  infamy  as  that  perpetrated  on  that  day  on 
our  illustrious  countryman." — John  Bach  McMaster's  Life  of  Franklin, 
Series  of  American  Men  of  Letters. 

Page  165.  Summarise  the  arguments  for  and  against  the  policy 
of  coercion  now  adopted  by  the  ministry.  The  "  four  intolerable 
measures" — the  Boston  Port  Bill,  the  Massachusetts  Bill,  the 
Transportation  Act,  and  the  Quebec  Act — should  be  made  the 
subject  of  special  study.  These  were  measures  of  the  greatest  in- 
fluence in  leading  to  the  American  Declaration  of  Independence, 
and  they  should  be  considered  under  the  light  of  their  treatment 
by  American  historians.  See  Bibliographical  Note,  p.  xi. 

On  the  bill  for  remodelling  the  Massachusetts  charter  Grahame, 
the  Scotch  historian,  says : 

"  The  town  meetings  (as  they  were  called)  were  not  less  valued  by  the 
Americans  than  dreaded  by  the  British  Government,  which  regarded 
them  as  the  nurseries  of  sedition  and  rebellion.  Their  institution  was 
coeval  with  the  first  foundation  of  civilised  society  in  New  England, 
and  their  endurance  had  sustained  only  a  short  interruption  during  the 
reign  of  James  II.  and  the  tyrannical  administration  of  his  minister,  Sir 
Ecjtmund  Andros;  and  while  they  presented  the  image  they  partly  sup- 
plied the  place  of  that  pure  democratical  constitution  which  was  origi- 
nally planted  in  Massachusetts,  and  the  modification  of  which  by  the 
second  provincial  charter  that  followed  the  British  Revolution  had 


492  NOTES. 

always  been  to  a  numerous  party  among  the  colonists  the  subject  of  re- 
gretful or  indignant  remembrance.  In  losing  this  privilege  the  people 
of  New  England  beheld  themselves  stripped  of  the  last  remaining  vestige 
of  those  peculiar  advantages  which  were  gained  by  the  courage  and 
virtue  of  their  forefathers;  and  in  invading  it,  the  British  Government 
palpably  assimilated  its  own  policy  to  that  of  a  reign  which  had  pro- 
voked successful  revolt  and  which  was  now  universally  reproached  as 
tyrannical." — Colonial  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  ii.  p.  484.  See, 
also,  Pitkin's  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  i.  pp.  265-267. 

For  a  study  of  the  Quebec  Act  consult  Coffin's  The  Province 
of  Quebec  and  the  Early  American  Revolution.  Bulletin  of  the 
University  of  Wisconsin,  1896. 

Page  193.  For  the  work  of  Galloway,  one  of  the  leading  loy- 
alists, consult  Tyler's  Literary  History  of  the  American  Revolu- 
tion, vol.  i.  ch.  xvii. 

Page  207.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  after  the  battles  of  Con- 
cord, Lexington,  and  Bunker  Hill  there  were  still  strong  hope 
and  expectation  in  America,  even  among  the  Patriot  party,  of  rec- 
onciliation. In  the  Declaration  of  the  Representatives  of  the 
United  Colonies  of  North  America,  in  Congress  at  Philadelphia, 
setting  forth  the  Causes  and  Necessity  of  their  taking  up  Arms, 
July  6,  1775,  the  colonists  say :  "  We  most  solemnly  before  God 
and  the  world  declare  that  we  will,  in  defiance  of  every  hazard, 
with  unabating  firmness  and  perseverance,  employ  our  arms  for 
the  preservation  of  our  liberties ;  being  with  one  mind  resolved 
to  die  freemen  rather  than  to  live  slaves." 

They  then  continue :  "  Lest  this  declaration  should  disquiet 
the  minds  of  our  friends  and  fellow-subjects  in  any  part  of  the 
empire,  we  assure  them  that  we  mean  not  to  dissolve  that  union 
which  has  so  long  and  so  happily  subsisted  between  us,  and  which 
we  sincerely  wish  to  see  restored.  Necessity  has  not  yet  driven 
us  to  that  desperate  measure." — Writings  of  Dickinson.  Dick- 
inson was  a  conservative  advocate  of  conciliation,  with  the  ma- 
jority of  Congress  still  in  agreement  with  him.  John  Adams 
himself  wrote  in  1774,  replying  to  "  Massachusettensis  " :  "  What 
does  he  mean  by  independence?  Does  he  mean  independent  of 
the  Crown  of  Great  Britain,  and  an  independent  republic  in 
America,  or  a  confederation  of  independent  republics?  No  doubt 
he  intended  the  undistinguishing  should  understand  him  so.  If 
he  did,  nothing  can  be  more  wicked,  or  a  greater  slander  on 
the  Whigs  ;  because  he  knows  there  is  not  a  man  in  the  province 
among  the  Whigs,  nor  ever  was,  who  harbours  a  wish  of  that 
sort." — Novanglus,  Adams's  Works,  vol.  iv.  p.  52.  Consider  this 
in  connection  with  pp.  224,  225  of  Lecky. 

Page  230.  Mr.  Lecky's  disparagement  of  the  heroism  of  the 
American  Revolution  may  well  be  questioned.  That  struggle 
was  one  of  courage,  of  sacrifice,  of  heroic  devotion.  As  in  all 
great  struggles,  there  was  a  dark  as  well  as  a  bright  side,  and  mean 
spirits  were  mingled  with  the  noble.  Read  page  426  in  this  con- 
nection. 


NOTES.  493 

Page  234.     See  the  Bibliography  on  Paine,  p.  xiii. 

Page  260.  For  contemporary  American  opinion  of  the  Tories 
or  Loyalists,  see  Sabine's  American  Loyalists,  pp.  13  et  seq.,  and 
John  Adams's  Works,  Index,  vol.  x.  Washington  spoke  with 
great  severity  of  the  Tories,  describing  them  as  "  conscious  of 
their  black  ingratitude,"  and  as  "  taught  to  believe  that  the  power 
of  Great  Britain  was  superior  to  all  opposition,  and,  if  not,  that 
foreign  aid  was  at  hand,"  and  as  "  even  higher  and  more  insult- 
ing in  their  opposition  than  the  regulars."  He  considered  the 
property  which  they  abandoned  in  their  flight  as  justly  subject 
to  confiscation.  The  loyalists  were  regarded  by  the  Patriot 
party  as  traitorously  betraying  the  interests  of  their  country  for  the 
sake'of  ease  and  gain,  and  they  were  regarded  as  especially  odious. 
To  the  patriots  they  were  the  "  copperheads  "  of  the  Revolution. 

Page  273.  The*  latter  part  of  1776  may  be  called  the  darkest 
hour  of  the  Revolution.  It  was  in  December  of  that  year  that 
Thomas  Paine  sought  to  revive  the  spirit  of  his  countrymen  by 
publishing  the  first  number  of  his  "  Crisis."  It  began  with  the 
famous  words :  "  These  are  the  times  that  try  men's  souls.  Tho 
summer  soldier  and  the  sunshine  patriot  will,  in  the  crisis,  shrink 
from  the  service  of  his  country ;  but  he  that  stands  it  now  de- 
serves the  love  and  thanks  of  man  and  woman.  Tyranny  is  not 
easily  conquered ;  yet  we  have  this  consolation  with  us,  that  the 
harder  the  conflict,  the  more  glorious  the  triumph." — Works  of 
Paine,  vol.  i.  p.  75. 

"  But  in  the  midst  of  the  general  despondency  there  were  a 
few  brave  hearts  that  had  not  yet  begun  to  despair,  and  the  brav- 
est of  these  was  Washington." — Fiske's  The  American  Revolution, 
vol.  i.  p.  229.  See  the  accompanying  pages  of  Fiske  for  a  por- 
trayal of  this  period. 

Page  286.  For  the  character  of  the  Continental  Congress  and 
its  constitutional  relation  to  the  States,  see  Small's  Beginnings  of 
American  Nationality  (Johns  Hopkins  University  Studies). 

Page  289.  For  full  references  on  the  finances  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, see  Winsor's  Handbook  of  the  American  Revolution,  pp. 
242,  243.  Some  of  the  more  important  are :  Hildreth,  iii.  chs.  xl., 
xliii. :  Pitkin,  ii.  ch.  xvi. ;  Rives's  Life  of  Madison,  i.  217,  229,  and 
ch.  xiv. ;  Schucker,  J.  W.,  Brief  Account  of  the  Finances  of  the 
Revolution  ;  Sparks's  Life  of  (Jourerneur  Morris,  i.  chs.  xiii.  and 
xiv. ;  Gouge's  Short  History  of  Paper  Money  ;  Hamilton's  Works, 
i.  116,  150.  223. 

Page  308.  For  an  interesting  study  of  Franklin  in  France, 
see  Bigelow's  Life  of  franklin,  vol.  ii.,  containing  extracts  from 
his  letters  while  there,  and  Hale's  Franklin  in  France,  vol.  i.  pp. 
84-173. 

Page  315.  As  to  the  numbers  and  importance  of  the  American 
Tories,  John  Adams  expressed  the  opinion  in  1780  that  "  the 
Tories  throughout  the  whole  Continent  do  not  amount  to  the 
twentieth  part  of  the  people."  He  offered  as  "  witnesses  who  can 


494  NOTES. 

not  be  suspected,  General  Burgoyne  and  General  Howe."  These 
generals  had  published  narratives  in  which  they  had  expressed 
their  disappointment  in  the  performances  of  aid  given  by  the 
loyalists  in  America.  Adams's  Works,  vol.  vii.  pp.  270,  281. 

In  another  passage,  speaking  of  an  earlier  date  in  the  struggle 
(1765),  Adams  says :  "  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  were  so  nearly 
divided,  if  their  propensity  was  not  against  us,  that  if  New  Eng'- 
land  on  the  one  side  and  Virginia  on  the  other  had  not  kept  them 
in  awe,  they  would  have  joined  the  British.  Marshall,  in  his  life 
of  Washington,  tells  us  that  the  Southern  States  were  nearly 
equally  divided.  Look  into  the  Journals  of  Congress,  and  you 
will  see  how  seditious,  how  near  rebellion  were  several  counties 
of  New  York,  and  how  much  trouble  we  had  to  compose  them. .  .  . 
Upon  the  whole,  if  we  allow  two  thirds  of  the  people  to  have 
been  with  us  in  the  Revolution,  is  not  the  allowance  ample?" 
Adams's  Letter  to  Thomas  McKean,  written  in  1813.  Works,  vol. 
x.  p.  63.  In  1815  Adams  wrote:  "I  should  say  that  full  one 
third  were  averse  to  the  Revolution."  Works,  x.  110.  McKean 
endorses  Adams's  estimate.  "  On  mature  deliberation,"  says  Mc- 
Kean, who  was  a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  "  I 
conclude  you  are  right,  and  that  more  than  a  third  of  influential 
characters  were  against  it."  Adams's  Works,  x.  87. 

Of  course,  there  is  more  or  less  uncertainty  upon  this  point. 
For  a  recent  and  very  valuable  discussion  of  the  subject  see 
Prof.  Moses  Coit  Tyler's  "  The  Loyalists  in  the  American  Revo- 
lution," in  The  American  Historical  Review,  vol.  i.  No.  1  (Octo- 
ber, 1895). 

Page  324.  In  the  Burgoyne  campaign  Schuyler  was  removed 
from  the  American  command  for  political  reasons.  Winsor  says  : 
"  Schuyler  has  long  since  been  acquitted  of  blame  for  his  conduct 
of  the  campaign,  but  a  certain  imperious  manner  and  incau- 
tiousness  of  tongue  had  created  a  prejudice  against  him  among 
the  New  England  troops,  and  the  change  was  perhaps  a  necessary 
one.  The  movement  in  behalf  of  Gates  was  assuming  a  political 
significance." — Handbook  of  the  American  Revolution,  p.  144.  See 
Wells's  Samuel  Adams,  vol.  ii.  ch.  xlv.  Consult  Winsor's  Hand- 
book for  references  on  Burgoyne's  campaign,  which  is  one  of  the 
most  important  military  events  of  the  Revolution. 

Page  343.  On  North's  plan  of  conciliation,  see  Bancroft,  vol. 
v.  p.  247  et  seq. ;  Fiske,  vol.  ii.  pp.  4-12. 

Page  358.  In  the  few  pages  omitted  here  the  author  treats  of 
changes  in  the  British  ministry  and  of  the  characters  and  influ- 
ence of  Thurlow  and  Wedderburn. 

Page  366.  On  the  detention  of  Burgoyne's  troops  Bancroft 
says :  "  The  troops  of  Burgoyne  remained  in  the  environs  of  Bos- 
ton. As  if  preparing  an  excuse  for  a  total  disengagement  from 
his  obligations,  Burgoyne,  complaining  without  reason  of  the 
quarters  provided  for  his  officers,  wrote  and  insisted  that  the 
United  States  had  violated  the  public  faith,  and  refused  to  Con- 


NOTES.  405 

gvess  descriptive  lists  of  the  non-commissioned  officers  and  sol- 
diers who  were  not  to  serve  in  America  during  the  war.  On  these 
grounds  Congress  suspended  the  embarkation  of  the  troops  under 
his  command  till  it  should  receive  notice  of  a  ratification  of  the 
'  convention  by  the  court  of  Great  Britain.  Burgoyne  sailed  for 
'  England  on  his  parole." — Vol.  v.  pp.  221, 222.  See  also  Magazine 
of  American  History,  April,  1879.  Consult  Winsor's  Handbook 
.  for  other  references. 

Page  362.  The  Conway  cabal  may  be  studied  in  Winsor's 
references  (Handbook,  p.  168);  Marshall's  Washington,  iii.  ch.  vi. ; 
Irving's  Washington,  iii.  chs.  xxv,  xxviii,  xxix,  xxx ;  Bancroft,  ix. 
ch.  xxvii ;  Sparks's  Gouverneur  Morris,  i.  ch.  x. ;  Greene's  Life  of 
Greene,  i.  22 ;  ii.  26,  27 ;  Hamilton's  Life  of  Hamilton,  i.  128- 
163;  Wirt's  Patrick  Henry,  p.  208;  Austin's  Gerry,  ch.  xvi. ; 
Reed's  Joseph  Reed,  i.  342 ;  Lossing's  Field  Book,  ii.  336. 

Page  383.  On  the  influence  and  agency  of  the  Irish  Presby- 
terians in  the  Revolution,  see  the  Publications  of  the  Scotch-Irish 
Society  in  America,  Proceedings  of  the  Ninth- Congress,  1895. 
The  volume  contains  addresses  on  the  Mecklenburg  Declaration 
and  the  Battle  of  King's  Mountain. 

Page  384.  The  paragraph  omitted  refers  to  the  activity  of 
Spain  during  1779  in  the  international  war,  her  siege  of  Gibraltar, 
and  her  possession  of  Florida. 

Page  424.  In  the  thirty  pages  following,  which  do  not  relate 
to  the  subject  of  our  text,  the  author  treats  of  foreign  aspects  of 
Britain's  wars,  the  career  of  Rodney,  the  battle  of  Cape  St.  Vincent, 
the  attitude  of  Russia,  the  armed  neutrality,  the  breach  with  Hol- 
land, and  the  deplorable  condition  of  England.  See  Lecky's 
England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  vol.  v.  pp.  58-88.  (Cabinet 
edition.) 

Page  427.  "  Adams  thinks,  as  he  tells  me  himself,  that  Amer- 
ica has  been  too  free  in  expressions  of  gratitude  to  France,  for 
that  she  is  more  obliged  to  us  than  we  to  her,  and  that  we  should 
show  spirit  in  our  applications.  I  apprehend  that  he  mistakes 
his  ground,  and  that  this  court  is  to  be  treated  with  decency  and 
delicacy.  The  King,  a  young  and  virtuous  prince,  has,  I  am  per- 
suaded, a  pleasure  in  reflecting  on  the  generous  benevolence  of 
the  action  in  assisting  an  oppressed  people,  and  proposes  it  as  a 
part  of  the  glory  of  his  reign.  I  think  it  right  to  increase  this 
pleasure  by  our  thankful  acknowledgment,  and  that  such  an  ex- 
pression of  gratitude  is  not  only  our  duty,  but  our  interest.  A 
different  conduct  seems  to  me  what  is  not  only  improper  and  un- 
becoming, but  what  may  be  hurtful  to  us.  Mr.  Adams,  on  the 
other  hand,  who,  at  the  same  time,  means  our  welfare  and  inter- 
est as  much  as  I  or  any  man  can  do,  seems  to  think  a  little  appar- 
ent stoutness  and  a  greater  air  of  independence  and  boldness  in 
our  demands  will  procure  us  more  ample  assistance.  It  is  for 
Congress  to  judge  and  regulate  their  affairs  accordingly." — Frank- 
lin to  the  President  of  Congress,  August  9,  1780.  Bigelow's  Life 


496  NOTES. 

of  Franklin,  vol.  ii.  p.  538.  Read  pages  533-539  of  Bigelow's 
Franklin. 

On  Adams's  general  conduct  in  France,  1780-1782,  and  his 
relations  with  Vergennes,  the  student  should  read  C.  F.  Adams's 
Life  of  John  Adams,  vol  i.  pp.  335-340,  Works  of  John  Adams. 

As  early  as  1778  Spain  made  offers  of  mediation  between 
France  and  Great  Britain.  Vergennes  drew  up  a  paper  embrac- 
ing propositions  which,  in  his  judgment,  might  be  accepted  as  the 
basis  of  pacification.  In  this  paper  Vergennes  acquiesced  in  the 
Spanish  suggestion  of  a  truce  for  a  term  of  ten  years  between  the 
mother  country  and  the  colonies,  which  had  been  assented  to  by 
Franklin,  our  sole  minister  at  Paris.  England  would  not  listen 
to  this,  as  she  would  then  tolerate  no  interposition  of  France  be- 
tween her  and  hei*  colonies.  England  demanded  the  dissolution 
of  the  alliance  between  France  and  the  United  States  as  a  first 
step.  Proposals  as  the  basis  for  negotiation  were  now  renewed  in 
1780,  and  submitted  to  the  courts  of  Paris,  Madrid,  and  London, 
and  these  had  to  be  replied  to,  though  Mr.  Adams  was  kept  in  the 
dark  as  to  the  proceedings.  But  it  "  became  necessary  to  commu- 
nicate the  facts  to  the  American  commissioner,  so  far  as  to  settle 
the  relation  which  the  United  States  were  to  hold  to  the  entire 
proceeding.  Was  their  commissioner  to  be  regarded  as  a  person 
clothed  with  diplomatic  powers  authorising  him  to  claim  a  place 
as  representative  of  a  sovereign  nation  to  treat  with  Great  Britain 
in  the  congress  which  might  be  assembled  under  this  mediation  f 
Or  was  he  to  be  considered  merely  as  an  agent,  to  watch  over  the 
interests  of  those  he  might  represent,  according  as  it  might  suit 
the  other  Powers  to  construe  them  as  sovereign  or  not  ?  It  was 
obvious  that  upon  the  determination  of  this  question  one  way  or 
the  other  would  depend  the  chance  of  making  out  of  this  opening 
a  road  to  negotiations."  Vergennes  had  proposed  that  "Congress 
should  strip  Adams  of  all  discretion  in  the  negotiation  and  should 
direct  him  to  take  his  orders  implicitly  from  himself,  even  though 
those  orders  might  go  the  length  of  a  concession  of  geographical 
limits,  of  the  substitution  of  a  truce  for  recognised  independence, 
of  a  surrender  of  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  of  the  fisheries, 
and,  even  in  the  last  resort,  of  a  consent  to  the  basis  of  uti  possi- 
detis  itself.  .  .  .  The  question  of  what  should  have  been  the  re- 
sponse on  the  part  of  an  American  minister  was  one  of  little  diffi- 
culty to  determine.  But  Mr.  Adams  was  permitted  to  see  but  a 
very  small  corner  of  the  picture,  nor  had  he  much  time  to  study 
even  that.  Yet  he  decided  at  once,  and,  with  the  instinctive  saga- 
city which  marks  his  whole  career,  his  decision  was  right.  .  .  . 
He  began  by  expressing  a  strong  repugnance  to  any  idea  of  a 
truce  which  involved  the  continuance  of  the  British  forces  in 
America.  But,  waiving  this,  his  decisive  objection  was  aimed 
against  the  anomalous  position  which  his  country  was  to  be  made 
to  occupy  in  the  course  of  the  negotiation.  It  was  to  play  the 
part  of  an  insurgent,  endeavouring  to  make  terms  with  a  superior 


NOTES.  497 

power,  instead  of  one  sovereignty  contracting  on  equal  footing 
with  others.  This  would  place  the  question  of  their  independ- 
ence at  the  mercy  of  a  congress  of  ministers  of  Europe,  to  which 
the  United  States  could  never  give  their  consent,  '  because,'  as  Mr. 
Adams  said,  '  let  that  congress  determine  as  it  might,  their  sov- 
ereignty, with  submission  only  to  Divine  Providence,  never  can 
and  never  will  be  given  up.'."  —  Adams's  Works,  vol.  i.  pp.  35-89. 

Page  436.  In  the  few  omitted  pages  the  author  continues  a 
consideration  of  the  new  Parliament  in  Great  Britain. 

Page  469.  The  peace  negotiations  of  1782  form  one  of  the 
most  important  and  interesting  studies  in  American  diplomatic 
history.  The  student  of  that  subject  should  consult,  in  addition 
to  the  works  of  Adams,  Jay,  and  Franklin,  the  following  authori- 
ties :  Sparks's  Diplomatic  Correspondence,  vol.  x.  ;  Wharton's 
Diplomatic  Correspondence,  vol.  iv.  ;  Journals  of  Congress  ;  Par- 
liamentary  History  ;  Jay's  Peace  Negotiations  of  1782-1783,  in 
Winsor's  Narrative  and  Critical  History,  vol.  Vii.  p.  89  ;  Jay's 


the  standard  American  and  European  histories. 

Page  470.  Franklin's  recital  of  "  facts  "  upon  which  he  based 
his  "  ingenious  "  plea  was  as  follows  : 

"  There  existed  a  free  commerce,  upon  mutual  faith,  between 
Great  Britain  and  America.  The  merchants  of  the  former  cred- 
ited the  merchants  and  planters  of  the  latter  with  great  quanti- 
ties of  goods.  .  .  .  England,  before  the  goods  were  sold  in  Amer- 
ica, sends  an  armed  force,  seizes  those  goods  in  the  stores  —  some 
even  in  the  ships  that  brought  them  —  and  carries  them  off  ; 
seizes  also  and  carries  off  the  tobacco,  rice,  and  indigo  provided 
by  the  planters  to  make  returns,  and  even  the  negroes  from  whose 
labour  they  might  hope  to  raise  other  produce  for  that  purpose. 

"  Britain  now  demands  that  the  debts  shall,  nevertheless,  be 
paid. 

"Will  she,  can  she,  justly  refuse  making  compensation  for 
such  seizures  \ 

"  If  a  draper  who  had  sold  a  piece  of  linen  to  a  neighbour  on 
credit  should  follow  him,  and  take  the  linen  from  him  by  force, 
and  then  send  a  bailiff  to  arrest  him  for  the  debt,  would  any 
court  of  law  or  equity  award  the  payment  of  the  debt  without 
ordering  a  restitution  of  the  cloth  ?  "  —  Bigelow's  Life  of  Frank- 
lin, vol.  iii.  p.  200. 

Page  471.     Adams  writes  to  Jay,  August  13,  1782  : 

"  For  my  own  part  I  am  not  the  minister  of  any  '  American 
colonies,'  and  therefore  I  should  think  it  out  of  character  for  us 
to  have  anything  to  say  in  the  Congress  at  Vienna,  until  more 
decently  and  consistently  called  to  it.  It  is  my  duty  to  be  ex- 
plicit with  you  and  to  tell  you  sincerely  my  sentiments.  I  think 
we  ought  not  to  treat  at  all  until  we  see  a  minister  authorised 


4:98  NOTES. 

to  treat  with  '  the  United  States  of  America,'  or  with  their  min- 
isters. Our  country  will  feel  the  miserable  consequence  of  a  dif- 
ferent conduct  if  we  are  betrayed  into  negotiations,  in  or  out  of 
a  congress,  before  this  point  is  settled  ;  if  gold  and  diamonds  and 
every  insidious  intrigue  and  wicked  falsehood  can  induce  any- 
body to  embarrass  us  and  betray  us  into  truces  and  bad  condi- 
tions, we  may  depend  upon  having  them  played  off  against  us. 
We  are  and  have  been  no  match  for  them  at  this  game.  We  shall 
have  nothing  to  negotiate  with  but  integrity,  perspicuity,  and 
firmness.  There  is  but  one  way  to  negotiate  with  Englishmen — 
that  is,  clearly  and  decidedly ;  their  fears  only  govern  them.  If 
we  entertain  an  idea  of  their  generosity  or  benevolence  towards 
us,  we  are  undone.  .  .  .  The  moment  you  depart  one  iota  from 
your  character  and  the  distinct  line  of  sovereignty,  they  interpret 
it  to  spring  from  fear  or  love  of  them,  and  from  a  desire  to  go 
back. 

"  Fox  saw  we  were  aware  of  this,  and  calculated  his  system 
accordingly.  We  must  finally  come  to  that  idea,  and  so  must 
Britain.  The  latter  will  soon  come  to  it  if  we  do  not  flinch.  If 
we  discover  the  least  weakness  or  wavering,  the  blood  and  treas- 
ures of  our  countrymen  will  suffer  for  it  in  a  great  degree. 
Firmness  !  firmness  and  patience  for  a  few  months  will  carry  us 
triumphantly  to  that  point  where  it  is  the  interest  of  our  allies, 
of  neutral  nations,  nay,  even  of  our  enemies,  that  we  should  ar- 
rive. I  mean  a  sovereignty  universally  acknowledged  by  all  the 
world  ;  whereas,  the  least  oscillation  will,  in  my  opinion,  leave  us 
to  dispute  with  the  world  and  with  one  another  these  fifty  years." 
— Correspondence  and  Papers  of  Jay,  vol.  ii.  pp.  328,  329.  Jay 
answered,  endorsing  Adams's  position.  Papers  of  Jay,  vol.  ii.  p. 
335.  Adams  felt  that  Vergennes  "  means  to  keep  us  down  if  he 
can,  to  keep  his  hand  under  our  chin  to  prevent  us  from  drown- 
ing, but  not  to  lift  our  heads  out  of  water." — Works  of  John 
Adams,  vol.  viii.  p.  4. 

Page  478.  Jay,  writing  to  Livingston,  our  Secretary  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  gives  at  some  length  the  reasons  of  the  American  com- 
missioners for  signing  the  preliminary  articles  without  consulting 
France. 

Our  commissioners  regarded  as  essential : 

1.  That  Britain  should  treat  with  the  United  States  as  an  in- 
dependent people.     The  French  minister  thought  this  demand 
premature,  and  that  it  ought  to  arise  from,  and  not  precede,  the 
treaty.     If  the  concession  of  independence  were  to  be  a  part  of 
the  treaty,  we  would  be  expected  to  make  a  corresponding  con- 
cession as  an  offset. 

2.  That  Britain  should  agree  to  the  extent  of  boundary  we 
claimed.     The  French  minister  thought  our  demands  on  that 
head  extravagant  in  themselves,  and  as  militating  against  certain 
views  of  Spain  which  he  was  disposed  to  favour. 

3.  That  Britain  should  admit  our  right  in  common  to  the 


NOTES.  499 

fisheries.  The  French  minister  thought  this  demand  too  ex- 
tensive. 

4.  That  Britain  should  not  insist  upon  our  reinstating  the 
Tories.  The  French  minister  argued  that  they  ought  to  be  rein- 
stated. 

Is  it  unnatural  that  those  who  opposed  all  our  claims  should 
not  be  admitted  to  full  confidence  respecting  the  very  matters  in 
competition  $ 

But  why  did  we  not  communicate  the  articles  to  the  French 
minister  before  we  proceeded  to  sign  ?  Jay  urges  that  public  ex- 
pectation in  England  required  that  Shelburne  should  put  a  speedy 
period  to  the  war  or  quit  his  place.  Parliament  being  about  to 
meet  before  the  negotiations  were  concluded,  Shelburne  adjourned 
it  for  a  short  period  in  hopes  of  their  meeting  it  with  all  the  ad- 
vantages of  the  completed  peace  negotiations.  Hence  these  negotia- 
tions must  be  brought  to  a  close  before  the  period  of  parliamentary 
adjournment  should  expire.  The  King,  in  Cabinet,  had  agreed  to 
confirm  and  ratify  not  what  Oswald  might  verbally  agree  to,  but 
what  he  should  formally  sign  his  name  and  affix  his  seal  to. 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  Shelburne  and  his  commissioner 
Oswald,  in  their  eagerness  to  have  the  peace  negotiations  ready  for 
Parliament,  in  the  exercise  of  their  discretion  went  beyond  the 
latitude  allowed  by  the  Cabinet.  To  communicate  the  articles  to 
the  French  Court  would  have  caused  delay,  and  the  English  Cabi- 
net might  have  repudiated  the  verbal  agreements  of  Oswald. 

"Our  withholding  from  France  knowledge  of  these  articles 
until  after  they  were  signed  was  no  violation  of  our  treaty  with 
France,  and  she  has  no  room  of  complaint  on  that  score. 

"  But  Congress  had  indeed  made  and  published  a  resolution 
not  to  make  peace  but  in  confidence  and  in  concurrence  with 
France.  So  far  as  this  resolution  declares  against  a  separate 
peace,  it  has  been  incontestably  observed ;  and,  admitting  that 
the  words  'in  confidence  and  in  concurrence  with  France'  mean 
that  we  should  mention  to  the  French  minister  and  consult  with 
him  about  every  step  of  our  proceedings,  yet  it  is  most  certain 
that  it  was  founded  on  a  mutual  understanding  that  France  would 
patronise  our  demands  and  assist  us  in  obtaining  the  objects  of 
them.  France,  therefore,  by  discouraging  our  claims,  ceased  to 
be  entitled  to  the  degree  of  confidence  respecting  them  which  was 
specified  in  the  resolution. 

"  But  Congress  positively  instructed  us  to  do  nothing  without 
the  advice  and  consent  of  the  French  minister,  and  we  have  de- 
parted from  that  line  of  conduct.  This  is  also  true ;  but  then  I 
apprehend  that  Congress  marked  out  that  line  of  conduct  for 
their  own  sake,  and  not  for  the  sake  of  France.  The  object  of 
that  instruction  was  the  supposed  interest  of  America,  and  not  of 
France ;  and  we  were  directed  to  ask  the  advice  of  the  French 
minister  because  it  was  thought  advantageous  to  our  country  that 
we  should  receive  and  be  governed  by  it.  Congress  only,  there- 


500 


NOTES. 


fore,  have  a  right  to  complain  of  our  departure  from  the  line  of 
that  instruction. 

"  If  it  be  urged  that  confidence  ought  to  subsist  between  allies, 
I  have  only  to  remark  that,  as  the  French  minister  did  not  con- 
sult us  about  his  articles,  nor  make  us  any  communication  about 
them,  our  giving  him  as  little  trouble  about  ours  did  not  violate 
any  principle  of  reciprocity." — Correspondence  and  Papers  of 
Jay,  vol.  iii.  pp.  56-61.  On  these  points  see,  also,  Adams  to  Liv- 
ingston, Adams's  Works,  vol.  viii.  pp.  11,  12. 

In  his  extended  report  to  Congress  on  the  preliminary  negotia- 
tions for  peace,  Jay  says :  "  So  far  and  in  such  matters  as  this 
Court  [of  France]  may  think  it  their  interest  to  support  us,  they 
certainly  will,  but  no  further,  in  my  opinion.  They  are  interested 
in  separating  us  from  Great  Britain,  and  on  that  point  we  may,  I 
believe,  depend  upon  them ;  but  it  is  not  their  interest  that  we 
should  become  a  great  and  formidable  people,  and  therefore  they 
will  not  help  us  to  become  so.  It  is  not  their  interest  that  such  a 
treaty  should  be  formed  between  us  and  Britain  as  would  produce 
cordiality  and  mutual  confidence.  They  will,  therefore,  endeavour 
to  plant  such  seeds  of  jealousy,  discontent,  and  discord  in  it  as 
may  naturally  and  perpetually  keep  our  eyes  fixed  on  France  for 
security.  This  consideration  must  induce  them  to  wish  to  render 
Britain  formidable  in  our  neighbourhood,  and  to  leave  us  as  few 
resources  of  wealth  and  power  as  possible.  It  is  their  interest  to 
keep  some  point  or  other  in  contest  between  us  and  Britain  to  the 
end  of  the  war,  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  our  sooner  agreeing, 
and  thereby  keep  us  employed  in  the  war,  and  dependent  on  them 
for  supplies.  Hence  they  have  favoured,  and  will  continue  to 
favour,  the  British  demands  as  to  matters  of  boundaries  and  the 
Tories." — Correspondence  of  Jay,  vol.  ii.  pp.  450,  451. 

Jay's  full  account  of  these  negotiations  may  be  found  in  pages 
366-452  of  this  volume  of  his  Papers.  Of  this  account  the  student 
should  read  especially  pp.  402-408,  giving  Jay's  reasons  for  send- 
ing a  secret  envoy  to  the  British  Court  to  counteract  the  repre- 
sentations of  Rayneval,  who  had  gone  to  England  on  a  mission  for 
Vergennes.  Jay  sets  forth  his  suspicions  and  conjectures  con- 
cerning the  policy  of  the  French  Court,  and  the  arguments  which 
his  secret  envoy  was  to  make  to  Shelburne.  Jay  says :  "  It  would 
have  relieved  me  from  much  anxiety  and  uneasiness  to  have  con- 
certed all  these  steps  with  Dr.  Franklin,  but  on  conversing  with 
him  about  M.  RaynevaFs  journey,  he  did  not  concur  with  me  in 
sentiment  respecting  the  object  of  it,  but  appeared  to  me  to  have 
a  great  degree  of  confidence  in  this  Court,  and  to  be  much  em- 
barrassed and  constrained  by  our  instructions." — Papers  of  Jay, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  407,  408.  See,  also,  William  Jay's  Life  of  Jay,  vol.  i. 
pp.  141-155;  John  Adams's  Diary,  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  299-353. 
Adams  says :  "  I  spent  the  evening  with  Dr.  Franklin.  I  told 
him,  without  reserve,  my  opinion  of  the  policy  of  this  Court,  and 
of  the  principles,  wisdom,  and  firmness  with  which  Mr.  Jay  had 


NOTES.  501 

conducted  the  negotiation  in  his  sickness  and  my  absence,  and 
that  I  was  determined  to  support  Mr.  Jay  to  the  utmost  of  my 
power  in  the  pursuit  of  the  same  system.  The  doctor  heard  me 
patiently  but  said  nothing. 

"  The  first  conference  we  had  afterwards  with  Mr.  Oswald,  in 
considering  one  point  and  another,  Dr.  Franklin  turned  to  Mr. 
Jay  and  said, '  I  am  of  your  opinion,  and  will  go  on  with  these 
gentlemen  in  the  business  without  consulting  this  Court.'  He  has, 
accordingly,  met  us  in  most  of  our  conferences,  and  has  gone  on 
with  us  in  entire  harmony  and  unanimity  throughout." — Adams's 
Works,  vol.  iii,  p.  336. 

"Franklin  was  never  anything  if  not  politic.  Shelburne's 
opinion  of  him  was  that  '  he  wanted  to  do  everything  by  cunning, 
which  was  the  bottom  of  his  character,'  and  most  Englishmen 
have  taken  that  view  of  him  ever  since.  He  was  certainly  never 
more  astute — which  may  be  a  more  pleasing  word — than  in  now 
yielding  to  Adams  and  Jay ;  and  he  was  never  more  successfully 
judicious  than  in  disarming  the  resentment  of  Vergennes  when 
that  minister  discovered  how  he  had  been  foiled." — Winsor's 
Westward  Movement,  p.  208. 

On  the  English  motives  in  these  negotiations,  see  Winsor's 
Westward  Movement,  p.  210.  On  the  French  and  Spanish  pur- 
pose of  hemming  the  Americans  in  on  the  west,  and  on  their  pro- 
posed boundary  line  "  on  the  back  of  Georgia  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Kanawha,  to  Lake  Erie,"  see  Winsor,  p.  223. 

Read  also  Kingsl'ord's  History  of  Canada,  vol.  vii.  ch.  ii. 


INDEX. 


Adams,  John :  defends  soldiers 
tried  for  Boston  massacre,  130 ; 
opinions  on  American  desire  for 
independence,  185,  187,  222,  223, 
492 :  propositions  at  Congress  of 
Philadelphia,  206 ;  on  opposition 
to  independence,  245;  share  in 
the  Declaration,  246;  on  regula- 
tion of  prices,  290 ;  commissioner 
to  Paris,  302,  426 ;  want  of  tact, 
427  ;  negotiates  Dutch  loan,  462 ; 
represents  America  in  peace  ne- 
gotiations (1782),  465;  on  mer- 
cantile debts  to  British  citizens, 
468;  Franklin's  comment  on  his 
conduct  in  France,  495;  refer- 
ences on  his  French  mission,  496  ; 
attitude  in  the  French  mission 
and  relation  to  Vergennes,  496 ; 
to  Jay  on  the  negotiations  of 
1782,  500 ;  on  Franklin's  attitude 
in  these  negotiations,  501.  Fa- 
miliar Letters  to  Ms  Wife,  cited 
in  footnotes,  205,  267,  310,  312, 
316,  317,  367,  374,  404.  Works, 
cited  in  footnotes,  15  et  passim. 
See  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE. 

Adams,  Samuel :  dominant  influ- 
ence in  Boston,  119 ;  character 
and  career,  120,  490 ;  action  dur- 
ing Boston  massacre,  129 ;  leader 
in  destruction  of  tea  ships,  153. 
Wells's  Life  of  Samuel  Adams, 
cited  in  footnote,  171. 

Adolphus,  cited  in  footnotes,  191, 
215,  241,  304,  334,  370,  425,  460. 
See  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE. 

Africa,  distribution  of  possessions 
in  peace  of  1782,  465. 

34 


Aix-la-Chapelle,  Peace  of,  unjust  to 
American  colonies,  6. 

Albemarle,  Life  of  EocHngTiam, 
cited  in  footnotes,  84,  85,  91,  92, 
94,  96,  330,  338,  341,  350. 

Allen,  Colonel:  captures  Ticon- 
deroga,  214. 

Almon,  Biographical  Anecdotes, 
cited  in  footnotes,  51,  68,  69.  See 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE. 

America,  Annals  of.     See  HOLMES. 

American  Archives,  Force,  cited  in 
footnotes,  177,  201,  219,  222.  See 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE. 

American  Remembrancer,  Tlie 
(1776),  cited  in  footnotes,  14, 131, 
204,  226,  233,  234,  267.  See  BIB- 
LIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. 

Amherst,  General,  47,  58,  337. 

Andre,  Major,  358;  negotiations 
with  Arnold,  409 ;  his  execution, 
414. 

Andros,  Sir  Edmund,  491. 

Annual  Register  (1765),  cited  in 
footnotes,  70,  82,  94,  99,  165; 
(1775),  199,  266;  (1777),  282; 
(1778),  345;  (1779),  373;  (1780), 
433 :  (1783),  464,  483. 

Arbuthnot,  General :  blockade  of 
French  in  Newport,  400. 

Argenson:  prediction  concerning 
colonies,  2. 

Army  :  American  objection  to  Eng- 
lish standing  army,  100, 119, 121 ; 
composition  of  American  army, 
202 ;  increase  in,  206 ;  defects, 
216;  footnote,  226;  bounties  to 
recruits,  233;  numerical  state  of 
English  army  in  1774,  241 ;  for- 

503 


504 


INDEX. 


eign  element  in  American,  267; 
wholesale  desertions,  268 ;  acces- 
sion of  distinguished  European 
soldiers,  310;  resulting  embar- 
rassments, 311 ;  difficulties  about 
appointing  officers,  315 ;  suffer- 
ings in  1779,  319 ;  colours  of  uni- 
forms, 335 ;  state  in  1779,  380 ;  in 
1780,  391 ;  bounties  and  pay,  394 ; 
reorganisation  in  1780, 421 ;  muti- 
nies, 434  sgq. 

Arnold,  Benedict:  with  Allen  at 
Ticonderoga,  214;  in  Canada, 
215;  commands  fleet  on  Lake 
Champlain,  261,  324,  325,  foot- 
note, 335,  358;  military  career, 
403;  charges  against,  404;  mar- 
riage, 405 ;  court-martial  on,  406 ; 
details  of  his  treason,  409  sqq. ; 
flight,  412;  motives  of  treason, 
412;  in  British  army,  414;  Amer- 
ican project  for  his  abduction, 
418;  in  Virginia,  441;  reward 
offered  for  his  capture,  442;  in 
New  York,  449;  destroys  New 
London,  453  ;  Isaac  Arnold's  Life 
of  Benedict  Arnold,  cited  in  foot- 
notes, 404,  405.  See  SPARKS. 

Arnold,  History  of  Rhode  Island, 
cited  in  footnotes,  47,  53, 119, 137, 
267,  268. 

Articles  of  Confederation,  286,  461. 

Attainder,  Acts  of,  259. 

Bancroft,  History  of  the  United 
States,  cited  in  footnotes,  3,  4,  9, 
et  passim. 

Barre,  Colonel,  74,  99. 

Barrington,  Lord,  337  ;  The  Politi- 
cal Life  of,  cited  in  footnotes, 
241,  243. 

Bath,  Lord:  pamphlet  advocating 
retention  of  Canada,  3 ;  reply  to, 
by  William  Burke,  3. 

Bedford  Correspondence,  cited  in 
footnote,  51. 

Bedford,  Duke  of,  revived  old  law 
on  trial  of  traitors,  124. 

Beers,  George  L. :  The  Commercial 
Policy  of  England  toward  the 
American  Colonies,  487. 

Bernard,  Governor  of  Massachu- 
setts: opposes  the  Sugar  Act  in 
1763,  54;  ground  of  his  unpop- 


ularity, 101  sqq. ;  recall  to  Eng- 
land, 126.  Letters  on  the  Trade 
and  Government  of  America, 
cited  in  footnotes,  45, 103, 122. 

Blackstock  Hill,  battle  of,  390. 

Bolles,  Financial  History  of  the 
United  States,  cited  in  footnotes, 
16,  287-290,  293,  373, 379, 422-424. 

Boston :  account  of,  17 ;  printing 
presses,  33,  footnote ;  waning 
prosperity,  55 ;  riots  against  the 
fetamp  Act,  81 ;  dispute  with  Gov- 
ernor Bernard,  103  sqq. ;  oppo- 
sition to  standing  army,  119 ; 
treatment  of  English  troops,  1 26  ; 
Boston  massacre,  127 ;  destruc- 
tion of  tea  cargoes,  153 ;  parlia- 
mentary coercive  measures,  165 
sqq. ;  blockade,  231 ;  capture,  234. 

Bourne",  Marquis  de,  457. 

Bounties  :  on  hemp  and  flax,  55 ;  on 
timber,  79 ;  on  recruits  in  Ameri- 
can army,  233,  394;  in  English 
army,  241. 

Brainerd,  37. 

Brandywine,  battle  of,  317. 

Bunker's  Hill,  battle  of,  203. 

Burgoyne,  General :  expedition 
against  Ticonderoga,  322 :  reaches 
the  Hudson,  325;  defeat  of  his 
German  troops,  325 ;  surrendered 
with  his  army  at  Saratoga,  327, 
421 ;  detention  of  troops  surren- 
dered by,  494,  495.  State  of  the 
Expedition  from  Canada,  cited  in 
footnote,  327. 

Burke,  Edmund  :  on  the  passage  of 
the  Stamp  Act,  74 ;  on  American 
taxation,  76, 159 ;  on  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act,  97,  footnote;  efforts 
for  conciliation,  197 ;  opinion  on 
the  American  question,  333 ;  plan 
of  economical  reform  in  1780, 434. 
European  Settlements  in  Ameri- 
ca, cited  in  footnotes,  15,  17. 
Speech  on  Conciliation  with 
America,  486 ;  cited,  15,  footnote. 
Observations  on  the  State  of  the 
Nation,  cited  in  footnotes,  17,  69. 
Correspondence,  cited  in  footnotes, 
86,  328,  332 ;  Speech  on  American 
Taxation,  cited,  105,  footnote. 
Works,  cited  in  footnotes,  141, 
148,  328,  331,  333. 


INDEX. 


505 


Burke,  William  :  argument  for  res- 
toration of  Canada  to  France,  3. 

Burnaby,  Travels  in  North  America, 
cited  iu  footnotes,  7,  15, 17,  27,  29. 

Bute.  Earl  of,  51. 

Butler,  Colonel  John:  tragedy  of 
Wyoming,  361. 

Byles,  Dr.,  173,  footnote. 

Camden,  battle  of,  388. 

Carnden,  Lord:  position  on  taxa- 
tion, 91 ;  advocate  of  colonial 
cause,  105  ;  on  a  Chatham  minis- 
try in  1778,  350. 

Campbell,  Lives  of  the  Chancellors, 
cited,  152,  footnote. 

Canada:  retention  of,  discussed,  3 
sqq.\  Quebec  Act,  168;  position 
of  Catholics,  169;  invasion  of, 
214 ;  loyal  to  England,  215 ;  abor- 
tive attempt  to  enlist  Frenchmen 
for  American  revolutionary  army, 
312;  proposed  combined  French 
and  American  invasion,  371 ; 
frontiers  defined  (1782),  467,  470. 

Carew,  Bamvfylde  Moore,  Life  of, 
cited  in  footnotes,  23,  33. 

Carleton,  General,  Governor  of 
Canada,  190,  215,457. 

Carlisle,  Lord,  346. 

Carolinas,  the:  political  privileges 
in,  9,  footnote ;  social  conditions, 
31 ;  insurection  in  North  Caro- 
lina (1771),  135;  in  the  war,  383, 
386  sqq. 

Catholics:  position  in  Canada,  169; 
Irish  recruits  in  English  army, 
242. 

Cavendish  Debates,  cited  in  foot- 
notes, 74,  118,  124,  132-134,  165. 

Chalkley,  Life,  Travels,  and  Chris- 
tian Experiences,  cited,  22,  foot- 
note. 

Charleston,  30,  262,  386. 

Charlestown,  2034 

Chastellux,  Travels  in  North  Amer- 
ica, cited  in  footnotes,  18,  23,  26, 
27,  34,  226,  268. 

Chesapeake,  the,  battles  of,  442, 
452. 

Church,  English:  established  in 
Virginia,  24 ;  status  of  clergy,  28 ; 
colonies  under  jurisdiction  of 
Bishop  of  London,  170. 


Circourt,  cited  in  footnotes,  372, 375, 
398,  428,  471,  477,  478. 

Clergy,  New  England,  172. 

Clinton,  General  (American),  445. 

Clinton,  General  (English) :  at- 
tempt to  capture  Charleston,  262 ; 
aim  of  his  operations,  323 ;  in 
New  York,  327 ;  retires  from 
Philadelphia  to  New  York,  359  ; 
captures  Charleston,  386 ;  instruc- 
tions to  Major  Andre,  416  ;  offers 
to  revolted  troops,  435 ;  dissension 
with  Cornwallis,  450 ;  persistent 
hopes  after  surrender  of  Corn- 
wallis, 460.  Narrative,  cited,  449, 
footnote. 

'  Cockpit,'  the :  Franklin's  exami- 
nation, 490,  491. 

Coffin,  The  Province  of  Quebec  and 
the  Early  American  Revolution, 
cited,  492. 

Collier,  Sir  George :  descent  upon 
Virginia,  381. 

Colonies,  American  :  population  in 
1763  and  1776,  1 ;  loyalty,  1,  2 ; 
revolt  of,  predicted,  2,  3 ;  Eng- 
land's consideration  for,  5 ;  mili- 
tary capabilities  of,  7,  footnote  ; 
impossibility  of  England's  retain- 
ing colonies  by  force,  7 ;  New 
England,  13;  Middle  States,  18; 
Virginia,  24;  other  Southern  col- 
onies, 29 ;  condition  of  labourers, 
30  ;  education,  31 ;  moral  and  po- 
litical condition,  34, 112,  footnote  ; 
treatment  of  Indians,  36;  posi- 
tion of  governors,  38  ;  relation  to 
mother  country,  38 ;  relation  to 
the  Crown  and  to  Parliament,  39, 
41,  486 ;  commercial  restrictions 
on  productions,  42 ;  on  exports 
and  imports,  43  ;  writs  of  assist- 
ance, 48 ;  commercial  code,  486, 
487. 

Commerce,  colonial :  regulated  by 
Parliament,  41 ;  code  restricted, 
42  sqq.,  486,  487  ;  with  West  Indies, 
53,54;  profits  to  England  of  colo- 
nial trade,  91 ;  relaxation  of  par- 
liamentary restriction,  98. 

Committees  of  Correspondence,  490. 

Conciliation  Bill,  344. 

Confiscation :  of  ships,  237 ;  from 
loyalists  in  America,  259. 


500 


INDEX. 


Congress,  American :  at  Philadel- 
phia laid  foundation  of  independ- 
ence, 180  sqq.,  493 ;  in  1775,  205 
sqq. ;  resolves  to  enlist  Indians, 
264 ;  to  form  navy,  266  ;  flight  to 
Baltimore,  276  ;  return,  280  ;  en- 
listment (1776),  283;  bounties 
offered,  284 :  powers  and  authori- 
ty, 285  ;  financial  difficulties,  287 ; 
issues  paper  money,  287 ;  advises 
confiscation  of  enemy's  property, 
288  ;  attempts  to  regulate  prices 
by  law,  290  ;  makes  paper  legal 
tender,  291 :  negotiates  for  assist- 
ance from  France,  296  ;  flight  to 
Lancaster  and  Yorktown,  318; 
declined  commissioners'  proposal 
of  reconciliation,  347  ;  jealous  of 
the  army,  362 ;  treatment  of  Sara- 
toga Convention,  364 ;  punish- 
ment of  loyalists,  368;  relations 
with  army,  394 ;  reorganisation 
of  army,  421 ;  paper  money,  422 ; 
half-pay  for  life  to  officers,  461 ; 
peace  negotiations,  464  sqq. ;  pow- 
er over  the  States  uncertain,  484. 
Journal  of  Proceedings  (1774), 
cited  in  footnotes,  184, 186.  Se- 
cret Journals  (1775),  cited  in 
footnotes,  221,  264. 

Congress  of  Commissioners  at  Al- 
bany (1754),  11. 

Connecticut:  troops  refuse  to  en- 
list, 228;  English  devastation, 
381. 

Controversy  between  Great  Britain 
and  her  Colonies  Reviewed,  cited 
in  footnotes,  62,  65. 

Conway  cabal,  references  on,  495. 

Conway,  General  (American),  311, 
362. 

Conway,  General  (English) :  op- 
poses Stamp  Act,  74;  Secretary 
of  State  for  Colonies,  84, 105, 117, 
458. 

Cooper,  Dr.,  President  of  King's 
College,  178,  footnote. 

Cooper,  History  of  the  Navy  of  the 
United  States,  cited,  266,  foot- 
note. 

Copley,  33. 

Cornwallis,  Lord :  captures  Fort 
Lee,  261 ;  battle  of  Camden,  388 : 
severities  against  insurgents,  389  ; 


failure  in  North  Carolina,  390 ; 
battle  of  Co\vpens,437  ;  on  Amer- 
ican atrocities,  439  ;  in  Virginia, 
449 ;  occupies  Yorktown,  451  ; 
surrenders  to  Americans,  454. 
Correspondence,  cited  in  footnotes, 
313,  370,  386,  388,  389,  438-440. 

Coudray,  General  du,  311. 

'  Cowboys,'  397. 

Cowpens,  battle  of,  437. 

Curtis,  History  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  462,  footnote. 

Cushing,  Thomas,  Speaker  of  Mas- 
sachusetts Assembly,  146. 

Dallas,  Count,  457. 

D'Aranda,  465. 

Dartmouth,  Lord,  200,  221,  236. 

Deane,  Silas,  agent  to  Paris,  296, 
302,  330,  369. 

Declaration  of  Independence,  245 ; 
political  doctrine  of,  306, 307,  309. 

Declaratory  Act,  93  sqq.,  134. 

Delaware, colonial  government  of,  8. 

Demarara,  457. 

D'Estaing,  Count,  French  admiral  : 
operations  in  aid  of  Americans, 
359,  361,  370,  384. 

Dickinson,  John :  The  Farmer's 
Letters,  104 ;  deprecates  war,  193 ; 
efforts  for  reconciliation,  207, 492 ; 
opposes  independence,  246 ;  on 
English  principles  of  taxation, 
489.  The  Farmer's  Letters,  cited 
in  footnotes,  52, 112, 178, 181.  See 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE. 

Diplomatic  Correspondence,  Amer- 
ican, cited  in  footnotes,  255,  267, 
et  passim. 

Dissenters  subject  to  no  religious 
test  in  America,  9,  footnote. 

Duddingston,  Lieutenant,  136. 

Dunmore,  Lord,  Governor  of  Vir- 
ginia, 216. 

Eden,  William,  346. 

Education,  in  the  colonies,  31. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  16,  33. 

Eliot,  John,  37. 

Elliot,  Sir  Gilbert,  336.    Life,  see 

MlNTO. 

Ellis,  Welbore,  458. 
England  :  loss  of  colonies  predict- 
ed,  2;  colonists'  attachment  to, 


INDEX. 


507 


9  ;  commercial  policy,  43-45  ;  ir- 
ritation against  America,  105  ;  in- 
vasion planned  by  France  and 
St>ain,  106 ;  enlistment  of  German 
mercenaries,  244;  popularity  of 
the  war  in  1776  and  1777,  329 ; 
change  of  sentiment  in  the  coun- 
try, 430 ;  peace  negotiations  of 
1782,  464  sqq. ;  abandonment  of 
loyalists,  480;  annuities  granted 
to  a  few  of  them,  484 ;  motives  in 
peace  negotiations,  499. 

Entails,  system  of,  in  Virginia,  25, 
486. 

Essequibo,  457. 

Farmer's  Letters,  The.  See  DICK- 
INSON. 

Fersen,  Count,  396.  Letters,  cited 
in  footnotes,  312,  397,  420,  445. 

Finances  of  the  Revolution,  refer- 
ences on,  493. 

Fisheries,  Newfoundland,  465,  471, 
474. 

Fitzherbert,  465. 

Fitzmaurice,  Life  of  Shelburne, 
cited  in  footnotes,  106,  107,  408, 
472,  473,  479. 

Flassan,  Histoire  de  la  Diplomatic 
Fran$aise,  cited  in  footnotes,  301, 
425. 

Florida,  30,  466. 

Force.     See  American  Archives. 

Foster,  Sir  Augustus,  Rotes  on  the 
United  States,  cited,  72,  footnote. 

'  Four  intolerable  measures,'  the, 
491. 

Fox,  Charles  James,  96,  footnote  ; 
influence  of  his  speeches  in  1777, 
332.  Life,  see  KUSSELL.  Corre- 
spondence, cited  in  footnote,  333, 
339,  351. 

France  :  design  to  invade  England, 
106  ;  humiliation  after  Peace  of 
Paris,  238;  Americans  seek  alii 
ance,  240 ;  appeal  for  aid  from 
American  Congress,  296 ;  Ver- 
gennes's  suggested  policy,  296 ; 
Turgot's  opposite  proposals,  299  ; 
King  appro  ves  Vergennes's  plans, 
301 ;  France  assists  America,  302; 
deceitful  professions  to  England, 
303;  popular  enthusiasm  for 
America,  305  sqq. ;  enlistments  for 


American  army,  311 ;  effect  on 
French  opinion  of  English  sur- 
render at  Saratoga,  327  sqq. ;  trea- 
ties with  America  signed,  328 ; 
rapid  growth  of  navy  (1778),  362 ; 
Revolution  dependent  on  France, 
398 ;  expedition  against  New- 
port, 399  ;  irritation  at  American 
finance,  423  ;  desires  an  end  of 
American  Revolution,  426  ;  navy 
aiding  Americans,  442 ;  defeat  on 
the  Chesapeake,  442 ;  American 
dependence  on  French  money 
and  support,  443  ;  a  loan  granted 
and  a  gift  from  the  King,  447; 
loans  to  America,  463;  conduct 
of  peace  negotiations,  464  sqq. ; 
excluded  from  American  confi- 
dences (1782),  499,  500  ;  motives 
and  purposes  in  negotiations,  500 ; 
motives  in  desiring  to  limit  Amer- 
ican boundaries,  501. 
Franklin,  Benjamin  :  on  American 
attachment  to  England,  9;  plan 
for  uniting  the  colonies,  11 ;  his 
literary  power,  33  ;  on  Gr-enville's 
policy,  72  ;  sketch  of  his  life,  138 
sqq. ;  literary  work,  140 ;  labours  to 
prevent  disruption,  142;  State's 
agent  in  England,  144;  sends 
Hutchinson's  letters  to  America, 
145;  his  defence  of  his  use  of 
them,  148;  return  to  America, 
197;  head  of  colonial  post-office, 
206 ;  revises  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, 246 ;  commissioner  to 
Paris  (1776),  302,  307;  life  in 
France,  308,  footnote;  approved 
project  of  burning  Liverpool  and 
Glasgow,  369,  footnote ;  objects  to 
begging  for  America  in  France, 
463 ;  negotiates  for  peace  (1782), 
465 ;  on  mercantile  debts  to  Brit- 
ish citizens,  468,  497  ;  apology  for 
secretly  signed  articles  of  peace, 
476  ;  treatment  of  loyalists,  482  ; 
'Hearing  at  the  Cockpit,'  490, 
491 ;  on  Adams's  mission  in 
France,  495;  Adams  on  Frank- 
lin's attitude  in  the  negotiations 
of  1782,  500 ;  English  opinion  of, 
501.  Life  of  Franklin  :  Sparks, 
cited  in  footnotes,  21,  33,  152 ; 
Parton,  218 ;  Bigelow,  493,  495 ; 


508 


IKDEX. 


Hale,  Franklin  in  France,  493. 
Works,  cited  in  footnotes,  5,  11, 
45,  62,  67,  70,  96,  141-143,  149,  161, 
185,  474-476,  482.  Canada  Pam- 
phlet, cited,  5,  footnote.  Cool 
Thoughts  on  the  Present  Situa- 
tion (1764),  cited  in  footnotes,  89. 
Causes  of  American  Discontents 
before  1768,  cited  in  footnotes,  45, 


Gadsden,  207. 

Gage,  General,  Governor  of  Massa- 
chusetts, 168  ;  prepares  for  war, 
175  ;  misjudges  American  feel- 
ing, 189  ;  suspends  writs  summon- 
ing Assembly,  1  94  ;  sends  troops 
to  capture  provincial  stores  at 
Concord,  201  ;  orders  negotiations 
with  the  Indians,  221  ;  inactivity, 
231,  232. 

Galloway,  Joseph  :  proposes  modifi- 
cation of  American  Constitution, 
193;  on  the  American  army,  224, 
footnote;  M.  C.  Tyler  on  the 
work  of,  492.  Examination  be- 
fore the  House  of  Commons,  cited 
in  footnotes,  187,  193,  258,  275, 
277,  283,  285,  286,  316,  319,  321, 
394.  Letters  to  a  Nobleman  on 
the  Conduct  of  the  War,  cited, 
225,  footnote. 

'  Gaspee,'  the  :  outrage  on,  by 
Americans,  136  ;  Bancroft's  ac- 
count, 490. 

Gates,  General  :  in  joint  command 
with  Schuyler,  261  ;  succeeds 
Schuyler,  324  ;  joins  cabal  against 
Washington,  362  ;  commands 
forces  in  North  Carolina,  387  ; 
court-martialed,  401. 

Gentz,  On  the  State  of  Europe  be- 
fore and  after  the  French  Revo- 
lution, cited,  45,  footnote. 

George  III.  :  first  to  realise  the  ef- 
fect of  the  Stamp  Act  in  America, 
85  ;  consents  to  its  repeal,  94  ;  de- 
termines to  coerce  America,  189  ; 
protests  against  military  econ- 
omy, 240;  prescribes  details  of 
English  policy,  336  ;  supports  em- 
ployment of  Indians,  337  ;  refuses 
to  treat  with  America  on  basis  of 
recognition  of  independence,  340  ; 


determination  not  to  accept  Chat- 
ham as  minister,  351;  compared 
with  attitude  towards  Fox  in  1804, 
352 ;  persistent  refusal  of  conces- 
sion to  America,  428  ;  receipt  of 
news  of  surrender  of  Yorktown, 
456  ;  hostility  to  Rockingham 
ministry,  459.  Memoirs,  see  WAL- 
POLE.  Recollections  of,  see  NICH- 
OLLS.  Correspondence  with  Lord 
North,  cited  in  footnotes,  189, 
190,  et  passim. 

Georgia,  30,  205,  361. 

Germaine,  Lord  George,  334,  396, 
458. 

Governments,  royal  and  proprie- 
tary, 8,  67,  245. 

Grahame,  History  of  the  United 
States,  cited  in  footnotes,  2,  7,  et 
passim. 

Grasse,  de,  Admiral,  in  naval  war 
of  1781,  450,  457. 

Graves,  Admiral,  452. 

Greene,  General :  favours  burning 
New  York,  351 ;  resigns,  401 ; 
commands  in  North  Carolina, 
437. 

Greene,  G.  W.:  German  Element 
in  the  American  War,  cited  in 
footnotes,  211,  311,  382.  Histori- 
cal View  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution, cited  in  footnotes,  225, 
294,  313. 

Grenville,  George:  his  policy  to- 
wards America  the  real  cause  ot 
Revolution,  50  sqq. ;  arguments 
for  his  scheme,  67  sqq. ;  contem- 
plates American  representation 
in  Parliament,  71 ;  arguments  for 
taxing  colonies,  86  sqq.  Papers, 
cited  in  footnotes,  52,  92,  94, 107, 
148. 

Guadaloupe,  3,  4,  5. 

Habeas  Corpus  Act:  enforced  in 
the  colonies,  39 ;  suspendedt  331. 

Hamilton,  Alexander, 423.  Works, 
cited,  418,  footnote. 

Hamilton,  Gerard,  on  military  ca- 
pacity of  the  colonies,  7,  footnote. 

Hancock,  General,  153. 

Hardwicke,  Lord,  5. 

Henry,  Patrick :  eloquent  lawyer 
in  popular  cause,  28;  believes 


INDEX. 


509 


war  inevitable,  189;  stimulates 
resistance  to  England,  192 ;  leader 
of  yeomanry ,  213 ;  advocates  pur- 
chase of  French  assistance,  238. 
.  Life,  see  WIRT. 

Heroism,  lack  of,  in  American  Kevo- 
lution,  230,  492. 

Hildreth,  History  of  the  United 
States,  cited  in  footnotes,  6,  7,  et 
passim. 

Hillsborough,  Lord,  Secretary  of 
State  for  the  Colonies,  117. 

Hinsdale,  The  American  Govern- 
ment, 486. 

Holland,  recognises  American  In- 
dependence after  Yorktown,  462. 

Holmes,  Annals  of  America  (1765), 
cited  in  footnotes,  82, 118. 

Hood,  Admiral,  452,  457. 

Hopkins,  Commander,  266. 

Howard,  On  Prisons,  cited,  131, 
footnote. 

Howe,  Sir  William,  General:  at 
Bunker's  Hill,  203 ;  assumes  com- 
mand, 232 ;  retreats  from  Boston, 
234;  captures  New  York,  250; 
lack  of  enterprise,  274  ;  incapaci- 
ty, 278;  retreats  from  New  Jer- 
sey, 282;  continued  inactivity, 
314;  expedition  against  Phila- 
delphia, 317 ;  opens  the  naviga- 
tion of  the  Delaware,  318;  re- 
called, 358. 

Howe,  Lord  (Admiral) :  command- 
er of  fleet  against  America,  249, 
337,  359.  Narrative,  cited,  249, 
footnote. 

Howells,  State  Trials,  cited,  330, 
footnote. 

Huske,  112,  footnote. 

Hutch  inson,  Lieutenant-Governor 
of  Massachusetts :  condemns  Sug- 
ar Act,  54;  victim  of  the  riots, 
81;  becomes  governor,  126';  or- 
ders removal  of  British  troops 
from  Boston,  129 ;  opinion  on  col- 
lection of  tea  duty,  133  ;  disputes 
with  the  Massachusetts  Assem- 
bly, 135 ;  letters  to  Whately,  145 ; 
petition  for  his  remos'al,  150 ;  er- 
ror as  to  strength  of  colonial  re- 
sistance, 189.  History  of  Massa- 
chusetts Bay,  1749-1774,  cited  in 
footnotes,  5,  10,72,  97,  101,  118, 


120,  126,  131,  133, 134,  153.     See 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE. 

Immigrants,  Scotch  and  Irish,  in 
the  Revolution,  224. 

Indians:  American  difficulties  with, 
6 ;  affairs  managed  by  the  Crown, 
11 ;  treatment  of,  36 ;  missionary 
efforts  among,  37 ;  war  of  1763, 
57  ;  appeals  to,  from  both  sides 
in  the  Re  volution,  219  sqg. ;  em- 
ployed by  both  sides,  263  ;  bar- 
barities, 264 ;  desolation  of  Wyo- 
ming, 361 ;  Six  Nations  reduced 
by  Americans,  382. 

Ireland,  the  army  in,  60. 

Iron  manufacture,  forbidden  in  the 
colonies,  43. 

Jamieson,  Colonel,  411. 

Jay,  John,  251  ;  negotiates  for 
peace,  1782,  465,  473;  report  to 
Livingston,  498  sqq.  Life  of  Jay, 
cited  in  footnotes,  245,  473. 

Jefferson,  Thomas  :  drew  up  Decla- 
ration of  Independence,  246.  Au- 
tobiography, cited,  181,  footnote. 
Life,  see  TUCKER. 

Johnson,  Colonel  Guy,  221,  263. 

Johnson,  Sir  William,  reports  on 
American  Indians,  36,  37,  foot- 
note, 263. 

Johnstone,  George,  346. 

Jones,  History  of  New  Yorlc,  cited 
in  footnotes,  253,  256,  260,  264, 
277,  282,  317,  335,  358,  411,  483. 

Jones,  Paul :  career  of,  378 ;  roving 
commission  on  behalf  of  Ameri- 
ca, 378.  Life,  see  SHERBURNE. 

Jones,  Sir  William,  poem  in  praise 
of  American  Revolution,  335. 

Judges,  position  in  the  colonies, 
19. 

Kalb,  Baron  de,  in  American  serv- 
ice, 311,  382,  387. 

Kalm :  on  colonial  submission  to 
England,  2 ;  on  lack  of  co-opera- 
tion in  colonies,  10,  footnote. 
Travels  in  North  America,  cited 
in  footnotes,  21,  22,  24,  46. 

Keith,  Governor  of  Pennsylvania, 
61. 

Kempenfeldt,  Admiral,  457. 


510 


INDEX. 


Kinglake,  History  of  the  Crimean 
War,  cited,  283,  footnote. 

Knox,  Extra-official  Papers,  cited, 
51,  footnote. 

Kosciusko,  hero  of  Poland,  in 
service  of  America,  311,  409,  foot- 
note. 

Lafayette,  319,  320;  Washington's 
attachment  to  him,  ,370 ;  on  the 
court-martial  of  Major  Andre, 
414 ;  at  the  head  of  forces  in  New 
England,  442;  spends  private 
money  for  his  troops,  445;  in 
Virginia,  449  sqq.  ;  takes  part  in 
investiture  of  Yorktown,  452. 
Memoires  de  Lafayette,  cited  in 
footnotes,  34,  173. 

Langrishe,  Sir  Hercules,  Consid- 
erations on  the  Dependencies  of 
Great  Britain,  cited,  79,  foot- 
note. 

Lansdowne,  Papers,  cited,  373,  foot- 
note. 

Laurens,  Henry,  sent  to  negotiate 
loan  in  France,  446. 

Lawyers,  in  colonies,  15. 

Lee,  Arthur,  commissioner  at  Paris, 
302. 

Lee,  Charles  (General) :  supports 
American  cause,  209 ;  defends 
Charleston,  262  ;  military  career, 
269;  treason,  402.  Treason  of 
Charles  Lee,  see  MOORE. 

Lee,  Richard  Henry,  on  non-im- 
portation agreement,  189. 

Legislation :  freedom  of.  in  the 
colonies,  39 ;  royal  veto  em- 
ployed, 41 ;  influence  of  com- 
mercial classes  in,  46  ;  Pitt  dis- 
tinguishes from  taxation,  87. 

Leslie,  General.  437,  441. 

Lexington,  battle  of,  201. 

Libraries:  in  JSew  England,  33; 
in  New  York,  destroyed  by 
Howe's  troops,  282. 

Lincoln,  General,  defender  of 
Charleston,  386. 

Liverpool,  Lord,  72,  footnote. 

Livingston,  463,  498. 

Lloyd,  General,  chapter  on  the 
American  war,  cited,  242,  foot- 
note. 

Long  Island  :  fortified  by  Ameri- 


cans, 248;  attacked  successfully 
by  Howe's  troops,  249  ;  its  loyal- 
ty to  the  Crown,  256. 
Loyalists :  number  of,  222 ;  called 
Tories,  256 ;  causes  of  their  im- 
potence, 259  ;  hanged  as  traitors, 
384  ;  treatment  by  their  country- 
men, 439 ;  abandoned  by  the 
English,  480;  view  of  Washing- 
ton and  Patriot  party,  493 ; 
number  and  importance  in  the 
Kevolution,  493,  494.  See  SA- 

BINE,  WlLMOT. 

Luzerne,  French  minister  to  Amer- 
ica, 475. 

Macpherson,  Annals  of  Commerce, 
cited  in  footnotes,  47,  54,  56,  98. 

Malmesbury  Papers,  cited,  425, 
footnote. 

Mansfield,  Lord  (Murray) :  on 
taxation  of  non-represented  colo- 
nies, 64;  on  desire  for  a  Chat- 
ham ministry,  349. 

Marie  Antoinette,  enthusiasm  for 
American  cause,  309. 

Marque,  letters  of,  381. 

Maryland :  colonial  government 
of,  8 ;  material  and  social  condi- 
tion, 29. 

'  Massachusettensis,'  194,  492. 

Massachusetts  :  prominent  in  Kevo- 
lution, 113 ;  addresses  sent  to 
English  supporters,  cited,  114, 
footnote ;  attitude  concerning 
the  army,  121 ;  passive  resist- 
ance, 123;  further  defiance,  154; 
charter  remodelled,  166 ;  Gra- 
hanie  on  the  Bill  for  remodel- 
ling, 491,  492  ;  the  Act  repealed, 
343.  State  Papers,  cited,  125, 
footnote. 

Matthew,  General,  descent  on  Vir- 
girria,  381. 

Mauduit :  favours  retention  of  Can- 
ada, 5 ;  agent  of  Massachusetts, 
68.  View  of  the  New  England 
Colonies,  cited,  69,  footnote. 

Mayhew :  sermon  against  the 
Stamp  Act,  82 ;  political  influ- 
ence, 172. 

Medical  school  in  Philadelphia,  33. 

Middle  States,  account  of  social 
state  in  1765, 18. 


INDEX. 


511 


Miifin,  General,  362. 

Militia,  7, 56  :  drilled  and  improved 
in  New  England,  179  •  reorgan- 
ised in  Virginia,  208 ;  Washing- 
ton's description  of,  271;  his 
opinion  of,  283 ;  drafted  by  the 
States,  285. 

Miller,  Retrospect  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century,  cited  in  footnotes,  31,  33. 

Minorca,  457,  406. 

Minto,  Lady,  Life  of  Sir  Gilbert 
Elliot,  cited  in  footnotes,  336, 
357,  359. 

'  Minute  men,'  179. 

Mischianza,  the,  358. 

Mississippi  boundary  (1782),  467, 
471. 

Monmouth,  battle  of,  359. 

Montesquieu,  'Notes  upon  Eng- 
land,' 2. 

Montgomery,  General,  214. 

Moore,  Frank,  Diary  of  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution,  cited  in  foot- 
notes, 176,  178,  251,  253,  256. 

Moore,  George  H.,  Historical  Notes 
on  the  Employment  of  Negroes 
in  the  American  Army,  cited, 
364,  footnote.  The  Treason  of 
Charles  Lee,  cited  in  footnotes, 
271,  370,  403. 

Morality,  American,  34. 

Morgan,  Colonel,  at  the  battle  of 
Cowpens,  437. 

Mooris,  Eobert,  268,  276,  460. 

Murray,  Lindley,  33. 

Mutiny  Act,  104. 

Navigation  Act,  9,  42,  44,  60. 

Navy,  American:  first  squadron, 
266  ;  privateering:,  267  ;  roving 
commission  of  Paul  Jones,  369, 
378. 

Nscker:  opposed  to  Vergennes's 
American  policy,  308 ;  proposes 
negotiations,  426. 

Negroes:  treatment  in  Virginia, 
26;  in  the  war,  217,  219,  364. 
See  MOORE. 

Newcastle,  8,  50. 

New  England:  description,  13: 
government,  14;  lawyers  and 
litigation,  15;  character  of  peo- 
ple, 16;  education,  31;  trade 
with  West  Indies,  53  sqq. ;  reli- 


gious fervour,  169 ;  character  of 
the  soldiers,  202,  216,  footnote, 
227. 

New  Jersey  :  miscellaneous  popu- 
lation, 18  ;   revulsion  of  feeling 
towards  Washington,  281. 
New  London,  destruction  by  Bene- 
dict Arnold,  453. 
Newport,  399. 

Newspapers,  31,  398,  398  footnote. 
New  York :  mixed  nationalities  of 
early  population,  18;  law  and 
the  judiciary  in  1765-'7, 1 9 ;  man- 
ners, 20,  footnote ;  refusal  to  obey 
the  Mutiny  Act,  104;  Assembly 
suspended,  110  ;  submission,  126  ; 
after  hesitation  joins  other  colo 
nies  in  revolt,  205 ;  central  point 
of  the  Revolution,  248 ;  captured 
by  Howe,  251 ;  proposals  to  burn 
the  town,  251 ;  incendiary  fires, 
252 ;  Provincial  Convention,  255 ; 
continued  loyalty  (1780),  397 ; 
Washington's  expedition  against, 
451.  Documents  Relating  to  the 
Colonial  History  of  JVew  York, 
cited  in  footnotes,  20,  37,  et  pas- 
sim. History  of  JVew  York,  see 
JONES. 
Nicholls,  Recollections  of  George 

III.,  cited  in  footnotes.  115,  338. 
Non-importation  agreements,  113, 

135. 
Norfolk,  burning  of,  by  Dunmore, 

217,  236. 

North,  Lord:  Chancellor  of  Ex- 
chequer, 117;  retains  Towns- 
hend's  tea  duty,  132;  tries  to 
appease  America,  198  sqg^. ;  car- 
ries on  American  war  against  his 
own  judgment  and  wishes,  338 ; 
frequently  tendered  resignation, 
339  ;  personal  attachment  to  the 
King,  340 ;  Bills  of  Conciliation 
for  America,  343  sqq.,  494 ;  sends 
commission  to  America,  346. 
See  GEOKGE  III. 

Novanglus,  John  Adams's,  488 ; 
denies  desire  for  independence, 
492. 

Oliver,     Lieutenant-Governor     of 

Massachusetts,  144. 
Osgood,  Professor  H.  L.,  The  Colo- 


512 


INDEX. 


nial  Corporation,  487  ;  on  revolu- 
tionary character  of  the  move- 
ment for  American  independ- 
ence, 488,  489. 

Oswald,  465. 

Otis,  James  :  advocates  resistance 
to  England,  48,  50;  advocates 
American  representation  in  Par- 
liament, 71;  leads  in  agitation, 
100;  elected  Speaker  of  Massa- 
chusetts Assembly,  103  ;  attitude 
towards  appointment  of  commis- 
sioners of  customs,  113 ;  on  arm- 
ing the  inhabitants  of  Boston, 
119  ;  loss  of  influence,  136.  An- 
swer to  the  Halifax  Libel,  cited, 
181,  footnote.  Life  of  Otis  (Tu- 
dor), cited  in  footnotes,  33, 48, 50, 
56,  81,  129,  131,  170,  189,  190. 

Paine,  Thomas:  Common  Sense, 
234,  309  ;  The  Crisis,  493 ;  Eights 
of  Man,  cited,  309,  footnote. 

Paper  money,  16,  54,  278,  379,  394, 
422. 

Paris,  Peace  of:  French  view  of, 
3;  very  advantageous  to  colo- 
nies, 10, 50  ;  toleration  of  Catholi- 
cism, 169. 

Parker,  Admiral,  abortive  attempt 
to  capture  Charleston,  262. 

Parliament :  relation  of  colonies  to, 
39  sqq. ;  first  attempt  to  tax  colo- 
nies 51  sqq. ;  competence  to  do 
so,  62 ;  proposed  admission  of 
American  repi'esentatives,  71,102, 
122 ;  discussion  of  repeal  of  Stamp 
Act,  94;  Townshend's  taxation 
of  America,  108 ;  attitude  of 
Parliament  in  1768-'9,  123;  re- 
vival of  law  for  trying  traitors 
in  England,  124;  coercive  meas- 
ures, 165,  198  ;  authorises  confis- 
cation of  all  American  ships, 
237  ;  resolves  to  recognise  inde- 
pendence of  America,  466. 

Parliamentary  History,  cited  in 
footnotes,  86,  92,  et  passim. 

'Parson's  Cause,'  the,  28,  486. 

Parties  in  American  Revolution, 
487,  488. 

Parton.     See  FRANKLIN. 

Peace  negotiations  of  1782,  464 
sqq. ;  references  on,  496 ;  Adams 


on,  497,  498 ;  Jay  on,  498  sqq. ; 
reasons  for  excluding  French 
from  councils,  499  sqq. ;  instruc- 
tions of  Congress,  why  disregard- 
ed, ibid ;  motives  and  purposes 
of  France,  500. 

Pennsylvania:  colonial  govern- 
ment of,  8,  22 ;  description,  20 ; 
great  admixture  of  nationalities, 
21. 

Percy,  Lord,  201. 

Philadelphia :  Burnaby's  descrip- 
tion of,  in  1759,  22 ;  social  habits 
and  manners,  23,  294,  footnote ; 
first  Continental  Congress  at,  in 
1774,  180;  second  Continental 
Congress  (1775),  205 ;  vicissi- 
tudes of  war,  277,  280;  under 
English  occupation,  358. 

Phillimore,  Life  of  Lyttleton,  cited, 
112,  footnote. 

Phillips,  General :  in  command  in 
Virginia  (1781),  448. 

Pinkerton,  Voyages,  cited  in  foot- 
notes, 7,  10,  et  passim. 

Pitt  (Lord  Chatham):  favours  reten- 
tion of  Canada,  5 ;  raises  colonial 
army,  7  ;  appreciated  in  America, 
10;  on  smuggling,  47  ;  his  policy 
reversed  by  G-renville,  50  ;  justi- 
fies Americans,  89 ;  popularity 
with  them,  99,104;  position  on 
American  question,  159  ;  efforts 
for  conciliation  in  1774  and  1775, 
195  sqq. ;  great  speech  on  concil- 
iation in  1777,  341 ;  general  de- 
sire to  place  him  at  the  head  of 
a  Ministry,  349  sqq. ;  refusal  of 
the  King  to  receive  him,  351 ;  last 
appearance  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  354;  how  regarded  by 
contemporary  statesmen,  355 ;  by 
the  King,  355 ;  effects  of  his  death 
on  the  Ministry,  357.  Corre- 
spondence, cited  in  footnotes,  91, 
95,  96,  107,  108,  152,  196,  199, 
341,  342,  350,  356.  Life  of  Chat- 
ham (Thackeray),  cited  in  foot- 
notes, 62,  98,  160. 

Population :  increase  of,  in  the 
colonies,  1,6;  of  Boston,  17,  foot- 
note ;  of  Virginia,  24. 

Post-office,  21,  64. 

Pownall :      advocates      legislative 


INDEX. 


513 


union  between  Great  Britain  and 
America,  122;  urges  repeal  ot 
certain  duties,  125;  leads  opposi- 
tion to  Lord  North,  132;  favours 
North's  proposition  of  concilia- 
tion, 200 ;  on  Indian  neutrality, 
265,  footnote. 

Presbyterians,  Irish,  21,  25,  357, 
383,  495. 

Prescott,  Colonel,  203. 

Price,  Dr.,  335  ;  On,  Civil  Liberty, 
cited,  131,  footnote. 

Privateers :  American,  233,  267 ; 
English,  330,  362;  New  York 
loyalists,  397. 

Pulaski,  Count  (a  Pole),  in  army 
of  Washington,  311,  361,  384. 

Puritans,  37,  169 ;  Puritanism,  173. 

Quakers :  modified  views  on  war 
in  Pennsylvania,  21;  righteous 
dealing  with  Indians,  37  ;  grate- 
ful for  repeal  of  Stamp  Act,  99 ; 
horror  of  war,  191 ;  hostile  to  re- 
bellion, 226. 

Quartering  Acts,  78, 168. 

Quebec  Act,  168,  197,  467,  472,  492. 

Quincy,  Josiah,  130. 

Kamsay :  History  of  the  American 
Revolution,  cited  in  footnotes, 
7,  187,  et  passim.  See  BIBLIO- 
GRAPHICAL NOTE. 

Rawdon,  Lord,  440. 

Reconciliation :  Pitt's  efforts  for, 
195,  196 ;  Burke's,  197 ;  North's, 
343  sqq. ;  desire  in  the  colonies, 
492. 

Eecord  Office  MSS.,  cited  in  foot- 
notes, 220,  221,  357. 

Eeed,  Joseph,  251,  253.  Life  and 
Correspondence,  cited  in  foot- 
notes, 236,  251,  253,  254,  419,  440. 

Representation  and  taxation,  75 
sqq. ;  English  view  of,  490 ;  Du- 
lany  on,  490. 

Review,  Quarterly,  cited,  72,  foot- 
note. 

Revolution,  events  leading  to :  de- 
struction of  French  power  in 
Canada,  2;  influence  of  commer- 
cial classes  in  British  legisla- 
tion, 46;  military  spirit  evokod 
by  French  war,  48  ;  Otis's  agita- 


tion, 49;  Grenville's  policy,  52 
sqq. ;  revision  of  trade  laws,  54; 
establishment  of  army  in  the 
colonies,  56  sqq. ;  determination 
to  tax  them,  60  sqq. ;  taxation  in- 
tended for  colonial  defence,  61 ; 
earlier  proposals  to  tax  Ameri- 
cans, 61;  arguments  in  favour,  62 ; 
Franklin's  views,  67 ;  Grenville's 
scheme,  67;  Stamp  Act,  68: 
American  opinion,  69 ;  -influence 
of  Barre's  speech,  74 ;  arguments 
for  and  against  the  Act,  75  sqq.  • 
American  revolts  against  it  (the 
'  Stamp  Act  Congress '),  80 ; 
Boston  riots,  81 ;  spread  of  flame, 
82 ;  impossibility  of  enforcing 
Act,  84  ;  trade  with  England  dis- 
organised, 86 ;  repeal  of  Stamp 
Act,  93;  commercial  relaxation, 
97  ;  confidence  restored,  98  ;  com- 
pensation of  sufferers  from  riots, 
101 ;  Boston's  disputes  with  Gov- 
ernor Bernard,  103 ;  question  of 
provisioning  English  troops,  104 ; 
Townshend's  taxes,  110;  de- 
nounced, 113;  smuggling  riots, 
118  ;  growing  spirit  of  insurrec- 
tion, 119;  Samuel  Adams,  119 
sqq. ;  attitude  of  Massachusetts, 
121;  of  the  English  Parliament 
in  1768-'9,  123;  repeal  of  all 
taxes  except  on  tea,  125  ;  Boston 
massacre,  127  sqq. ;  trial  and  ac- 
quittal of  the  soldiers,  130 ; 
American  humanity,  131 ;  tea 
duty,  132  sqq. ;  abandonment 
of  non-importation  agreements, 
135 ;  destruction  of  the  '  Gaspee,' 
1 37  ;  committees  of  correspond- 
ence, 138 ;  Hutchinson's  letters, 
145;  Boston  tea  ships,  153; 
closing  of  Boston  harbour  and 
suspension  of  Massachusetts 
charter,  165  ;  soldiers  to  be  tried 
in  England,  167;  Quartering 
and  Quebec  Acts,  168;  other 
colonies  support  Boston,  174; 
Game's  difficulties,  numerous 
riots,  175 ;  position  of  loyalists, 
176  ;  Gage's  proclamation  against 
hypocrisy,  179 ;  first  Continental 
Congress,  180;  grievances  de- 
tailed by  it,  181 ;  its  resolutions, 


514: 


INDEX. 


182;  addresses  to  King  and  peo- 
ple of  England  and  to  Canadians, 
183;  general  arming,  185;  how 
few  Americans  wished  for  inde- 
pendence, 185  ;  illusions  in  Amer- 
ica, 188;  in  England,  189;  di- 
vided opinion  in  America,  191 ; 
loyalists,  192;  enrollment  of  an 
American  army,  194. 

Revolution  organised :  capture  of 
Fort  William,  195;  Chatham's 
efforts  of  conciliation,  195 ; 
Burke's,  Hartley's,  etc.,  197; 
North's  plan,  198  ;  more  coercive 
measures,  198 ;  battle  of  Lexing- 
ton, 201 ;  New  England  army  in- 
creased, 202 ;  Bunker's  Hill,  203  ; 
second  Continental  Congress, 
205  ;  Washington,  Commander- 
in-chief,  206  ;  jealousy  and  sus- 
picion, 206  ;  invasion  of  Canada, 
214 ;  fighting  in  Virginia,  21V  ; 
negroes  and  Indians,  219  ;  num- 
ber of  loyalists,  222 ;  misgivings, 
223 ;  general  apathy,  224 ;  defects 
of  army,  226 ;  difficulties  in  en- 
listment, 227  ;  want  of  earnest- 
ness, 228 ;  incapacity  and  indeci- 
sion of  the  British,  230;  use  of 
privateers,  233 ;  influence  of 
Paine's  '  Common  Sense,'  234 ; 
British  confiscation  of  ships,  237  ; 
desire  for  French  alliance  and 
aid,  237;  England's  home  diffi- 
culties, 241 ;  foreign  troops  hired, 
243 ;  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence voted,  246. 

Revolution,  1776-'7:  New  York 
becomes  chief  centre,  248 ;  cap- 
tured by  Howe,  250 ;  destruction 
proposed,  250  ;  demoralisation  of 
army,  253 ;  causes  of  loyalist 
incompetence,  259 ;  Washington 
retreats  to  New  Jersey,  261 ;  Ti- 
conderoga,  Lake  Champlain, 
261;  Charleston,  262;  Rhode 
Island,  263  ;  employment  of  In- 
dians on  both  sides,  263  ;  creation 
of  American  navy,  266  ;  popular- 
ity of  privateering,  267 ;  deplor- 
able condition  of  Washington's 
army,  268  ;  capture  of  Lee  and 
retreat  of  Washington,  271 ;  Brit- 
ish successes,  274;  disaffection 


among  States,  275  ;  Congress  fled 
to  Baltimore,  276 ;  incapacity  of 
Howe,  278 ;  Washington  sur- 
prises Trenton,  280;  Congress 
returns  to  Philadelphia,  280  ;  re- 
vulsion of  feeling  against  Eng- 
lish, 281  ;  outrages  by  British 
soldiers,  282 ;  enlistment  of  new 
army,  283;  difficulties  of  Con- 
gress, 285 ;  financial  stress,  287  ; 
confiscation,  288 ;  paper  money, 
288  ;  attempted  regulation  of 
prices,  290 ;  paper  made  legal  ten- 
der, 291 ;  general  prospects  of  the 
war,  294;  Silas  Deane  sent  to 
Paris,  296;  French  subsidise 
Americans,  301 ;  American  com- 
mission at  Paris,  802;  friendly 
action  of  Prussia  and  Holland, 
304,  305 ;  French  enthusiasm  for 
America,  305  sqq. ;  Marie  Antoi- 
nette, 309;  foreign  enlistments, 
310 ;  embarrassments  resulting, 
311 ;  difficulties  of  Washington 
in  New  Jersey,  313 ;  predatory 
expeditions,  316 ;  Washington 
defeated  at  Brandywine,  317 ; 
Howe  occupies  Philadelphia,  317  ; 
sufferings  of  the  American  army, 
319 ;  winter  at  Valley  Forge,  321 ; 
Burgoyue  captures  Ticonderoga, 
323  ;  renewed  vigour  of  New  Eng- 
landers,  324;  battle  of  Stillwater, 
325 ;  Burgoyne  in  difficulties, 
326  ;  surrenders  at  Saratoga,  327. 
Revolution,  1778-'9  :  treaty  be- 
tween France  and  America,  328  ; 
North's  Bills  of  Conciliation,  343  ; 
English  commissioners  sent  to 
America,  346;  England  at  war 
with  France,  347  ;  French  naval 
co-operation  with  America,  359  ; 
abortive,  attack  on  Rhode  Island, 
360 ;  other  expeditions  in  1778, 
361 ;  disputes  in  American  army, 
362 ;  half- pay,  362  ;  violation  of 
Saratoga  Convention,  364  ;  Eng- 
lish conduct  the  war  more  fierce- 
ly, 36"6  ;  despair  of  loyalists,  368  ; 
American  humanity,  369;  jeal- 
ousy between  Americans  and 
French,  370;  projected  invasion 
of  Canada,  371 ;  opposition  to  a 
war  taxation,  373 ;  rise  of  prices, 


INDEX. 


515 


374 ;  French  disappointment  with 
American  character  and  conduct, 
375;  attitude  of  the  people,  375  ; 
exploits  of  Paul  Jones,  378 ;  ef- 
fects of  depreciation  of  American 
paper,  379  ;  English  devastations 
in  Virginia  and  Connecticut, 
381 ;  Americans  attack  the  Six 
Nations,  353  ;  war  in  the  South, 
383 ;  French  and  Americans  fail 
before  Savannah,  384. 

Ee volution,  1780  :  English  take 
Charleston,  386  ;  subjugate 
South  Carolina,  386  j  battle  of 
Camden,  388 ;  severities  of  Eng- 
lish, 389 ;  failure  of  English  in- 
vasion of  North  Carolina,  390; 
wretched  condition  of  American 
army,  391 ;  discontent  and  dis- 
couragement, 394  ;  Revolution 
completely  dependent  on  France, 
398;  French  fleet  and  army  at 
N ewport,  399 ;  fleet  blockaded  by 
English,  400 ;  Congress  jealous  of 
army,  401 ;  treason  of  Lee  and  of 
Arnold,  403  sqq. ;  execution  of 
Major  Andre,  414;  general  re- 
sults of  campaign,  419  ;  new 
measures  for  enlisting  soldiers, 
421 ;  partial  bankruptcy,  421  ; 
John  Adams's  mission  to  Paris, 
426  ;  Vergennes's  proposal  of  a 
truce,  427. 

Revolution,  1781 :  mutiny  of  Penn- 
sylvania line,  434;  English  de- 
feat at  Cowpens,  437 ;  savage 
character  of  Southern  war,  439 ; 
Arnold  in  Virginia,  441 ;  Wash- 
ington's designs  against  New 
York,  443 ;  depression  of  Ameri- 
cans, 445 ;  generosity  of  France, 
447 ;  English  predatory  war  in 
Virginia,  448  ;  Lafayette  defeated 
at  James  River,  450 ;  Cornwallis 
occupies  Yorktown,  451 ;  Wash- 
ington and  Rochambeau  march 
to  V  irginia,  451 ;  French  fleet  in 
the  Chesapeake,  452  ;  •  Arnold 
captures  and  destroys  New  Lon- 
don, 453 ;  surrender  of  Cornwal- 
lis, 454. 

Revolution,  1782 :  state  of  affairs  at 
Yorktown,  459;  financial  diffi- 
culties, 460 ;  disaffection  in  the 


army,  462;  half-pay  question, 
4(31;  Dutch  and  French  loans, 
463;  necessity  of  peace,  464;  pre- 
liminary articles  of  peace,  465 
eqq. ;  boundaries,  467,  470 ;  mer- 
cantile debts  to  British  citizens, 
468,  497  ;  difference  with  France 
in  negotiations,  469 ;  fisheries, 
471 ;  Mississippi  boundary,  471  ; 
preliminaries  secretly  signed, 
474 ;  new  loan  from  France,  476  ; 
skilful  conduct  of  negotiations, 
479  ;  treatment  of  loyalists,  480  ; 
reasons  for  it,  482. 

Rhode  Island,  History  of.  See  AR- 
NOLD. 

Richmond,  English  devastations 
in,  441. 

Rittenhouse,  33,  282. 

Robertson,  Governor  of  New  York, 
397. 

Rochambeau,  Count :  commander 
of  French  forces  in  American 
war,  396,  398,  451 ;  advanced 
money  to  Americans,  453. 

Rockingham,  84,  94, 104.  Life  of, 
see  ALBEMAKLE. 

Rodney,  Admiral,  452,  454 

Russell,  Lord,  Life  of  Fox,  cited 
in  footnotes,  200,  253. 

Sabine,  American  Loyalists,  cited 
in  footnotes,  31,  52.  153,  222,  259, 
260,  398,  482-485,  493. 

Sandwich,  Lord,  190. 

Saratoga  Convention,  327;  violation 
of,  364,  494,  495. 

Savannah :  captured  by  British, 
361 ;  besieged  by  French,  384. 

Savile,  Sir  George,  95,  330. 

Schuyler,  General  :  commands 
Northern  army,  214,  227,  261 ;  re- 
placed by  Gates,  324, 401 ;  reasons 
For  removal,  494. 

Segur,  Comte  de,  Memoires,  cited, 
35,  footnote. 

Shelburne,  Earl  of:  presides  over 
American  affairs,  105, 117  ;  policy 
in  peace  negotiations  of  1782,499. 
Life  of,  see  FITZMAUKICE. 

Sherbur'ne,  Life  of  Paul  Jones, 
cited,  379,  footnote. 

Shippen,  Miss,  wife  of  Benedict 
Arnold,  358. 


516 


INDEX. 


Shirley,  Governor  of  Massachu- 
setts, 62,  64. 

4  Skinners,'  397. 

Slavery :  in  Virginia,  25 ;  volun- 
tary, 30,  footnote;  influence  of, 
35;  slave-trade  in  1701,  4<i. 

Small,  A.  W.,  The  Beginnings  of 
American  Nationality,  cited, 
493. 

Smith,  Adam:  on  the  mercantile 
system  and  commercial  code  of 
the  colonies,  487.  Wealth  of  Na- 
tions. 156  sqq. :  cited  in  footnotes, 
45,  46. 

Smuggling,  38,  47,  52,  55,  118,  136. 

Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel,  37. 

'  Sons  of  liberty  '  (American  asso- 
ciations against  Stamp  Act),  75, 
103,  109,  126,  153. 

Spain  :  intrigues  with  France 
against  England,  106  :  joins 
France  in  aiding  America,  305; 
articles  of  peace,  465  sqq. 

Sparks  :  Life  of  .Benedict  Arnold, 
in  footnotes,  '397,  407,  419.  Life 
of  Washington,  cited  in  footnotes, 
170,  222,  312. 

Stamp  Act:  purpose  of  revenue, 
'60;  Grenville's  defence  of,  68;  | 
importance  of,  73,  75 ;  carried, 
79 ;  the  '  Stamp  Act  Congress,' 
80 ;  Pitt  advocates  repeal,  91 ; 
reasons  for  repeal,  93  ;  feeling  in 
England  after  its  repeal,  105, 489, 
490. 

Stanhope,  Lord  :  History  of  Eng- 
land, cited  in  footnotes,  107,  215. 
Miscellanies,  cited,  335,  footnote. 
See  MAHON,  in  BIBLIOGRAPHI- 
CAL NOTE. 

St.  Christopher,  457,  465. 

St.  Clair,  General,  401. 

Stedman,  History  of  the  American 
War,  cited  in  footnotes,  133,  215, 
et  passim. 

Steuben,  General :  disciplines 
Washington's  army,  311 ;  on 
court-martial  of  Andre,  414;  in 
Virginia,  441,  448. 

St.  Eustatius,  457. 

St.  Lucia,  465. 

Story,  Commentaries  on  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States,  cited, 


486,  and  in  footnotes,  17,  27,  29, 
39,  40,  41,  81,  181,  245,  28(5. 

Strange,  Lord,  94. 

Stuart:  reports  on  American  In- 
dians, 36 ;  manages  English  af- 
fairs in  Southern  colonies,  220; 
organises  conspiracy  of  loyalists 
and  Indians,  265. 

Sugar  trade,  43,  54. 

Sullivan,  General :  attack  on  Ehode 
Island,  360;  expedition  against 
the  Six  Nations,  382 ;  throws  up 
his  commission,  401. 

Sumpter,  General,  commands  in 
South  Carolina,  388,  3UO. 

Tarleton,  Colonel,  in  command  at 
battle  of  Cowpens,  437. 

Taxation :  internal  and  external, 
61 ;  right  of  Parliament,  62  sq., 
488  ;  and  representation,  75  sqq. ; 
Grenvi lie's  arguments  for  taxing 
colonies,  86  sqq.  ;  Chatham's 
against,  89;  revolutionary  char- 
acter of  American  resistance,  488, 
489. 

Tea,  52 ;  duty  on,  110, 132,  490;  ob- 
ject of  maintaining  it,  134;  op- 
posed by  East  lndiaCompany,162. 

Ternay,  Admiral  de,  commander  of 
French  fleet  in  American  war, 
396,  399. 

Thurloe,  State  Pagers,  cited,  76, 
footnote. 

Ticonderoga,  214. 

Tobacco :  in  Virginia  and  Mary- 
land, 25, 27  ;  regulation  of  export, 
43 ;  taxation,  63. 

Tobago,  ceded  to  France,  465. 

Town  meetings,  highly  valued  by 
Americans,  491. 

Townshend,  Charles,  51,  59,  92; 
Pitt's  Chancellor  of  Exchequer, 
105 ;  declaration  on  taxation  of 
America,  107 ;  suspends  New 
York  Assembly,  110;  establishes 
a  new  Board  of  Customs  and  new 
taxes,  110;  review  of  his  policy, 
111 ;  reception  of  his  measures  in 
America,  113  ;  death  and  charac- 
ter, 115 ; 'pecuniary  results  of  his 
American  taxation,  124;  repeal 
of  all  taxes  except  that  on  tea, 
125, 132. 


INDEX. 


517 


Trenton,  captured  by  Washington, 
280. 

Trescott :  Diplomacy  of  the  Revo- 
lution, cited,  474,  footnote. 

Trumbull,  History  of  the  United 
Mates,  cited,  58,  footnote. 

Trvon,  Governor  of  New  York,  190, 
226,  381. 

Tucker,  Dean  :  argument  for  sepa- 
ration, 154.  Letters  to  Burke, 
cited  in  footnotes,  15, 16,  66.  Four 
Tracts,  cited,  45,  footnote.  Life 
of  Jefferson,  cited,  173,  footnote. 

Turgot :  prophecy  concerning  de- 
tachment of  American  colonies, 
3,  296;  memorial  to  the  King, 
299;  epigram  on  Franklin,  307. 
Works,  cited,  301,  footnote. 

Tyler :  History  of  American  Liter- 
ature, cited  in  footnotes,  18,  20, 
31.  The  Literary  History  of  the 
American  devolution,  489,  490, 
492. 

Vergennea:  prophecy  of  detach- 
ment of  American  colonies,  3; 
memorial  to  the  King,  296;  his 
views  carried  out,  301 ;  change  ot 
sentiment  towards  America,  426  ; 
proposals  for  peace,  427  ;  distrusts 
American  public  men,  447 ;  rep- 
resents France  in  peace  negotia- 
tions of  1782,  465  ;  annoyance  at 
secret  signing  of  articles,  475 ;  re- 
lations with  Spain,  478;  desires 
amnesty  for  American  loyalists, 
481 ;  attitude  towards  America  in 
negotiations  of  1782,  497,  498. 

Versailles,  Treaty  of,  481. 

Virginia :  description,  24  ;  charac- 
ter of  people,  25;  slavery,  27; 
anti-English  feeling,  28  ;  supports 
Massachusetts,  173;  eager  for  war, 
192  ;  with  Massachusetts  leads  in 
Revolution,  245 ;  English  devas- 
tations in  1779, 381 ;  Benedict  Ar- 
noldin,441 ;  predatory  war  in,  448. 

Walpole,  8,  62.  George  III.,  cited, 
51,  footnote.  Memoirs,  cited  in 
footnotes,  86,  95,  110,  115,' 117. 
Last  Journals,  cited  in  footnotes, 

'  190,  199,  328,  334,  357,  302. 

Ward,  General,  209. 


Washington,  George  :  disclaims  in 
1774  American  desire  for  inde- 
pendence, 185 ;  made  Command- 
er-in-chief, 206  ;  sketch  of  his 
life,  208;  intellectual  faculties, 
209 ;  military  capacity,  210  ;  char- 
acter, 212 ;  refused  a  salary,  214 ; 
difficulties  from  defects  of  army, 
226 ;  no  heroism  among  his  troops, 
227;  enters  Boston,  234;  in  New 
York,  248  ;  statistics  of  his  army, 
249 ;  retreat  from  New  York,  249 ; 
suggested  burning  New  York, 
25u ;  insubordination  of  his  troops, 
254  ;  disbandment,  268  ;  retreat 
to  Pennsylvania,  271 ;  continued 
complaints  about  his  men,  271 ; 
defeats  Germans  at  Trenton,  280 ; 
improved  state  of  his  forces,  280 ; 
objections  to  militia,  283;  pro- 
cures enlistment  of  new  army, 
283;  receives  limited  dictatorial 
powers  over  his  officers,  285 ;  dif- 
ficulties with  foreign  officers,  312 ; 
the  rival  armies  in  1777,  313 ; 
defeated  at  Brandywine,  317  ; 
complaints  of  disaffection  and 
apathy,  318 ;  cabal  of  generals 
against  him,  362 ;  advocates  half- 
pay  for  officers,  362 ;  on  French 
plans  against  Canada,  371 ;  on 
rise  in  prices,  374;  complaints 
about  his  army  in  1780,  391,  398 ; 
on  the  power  of  England,  393 ; 
acknowledges  dependence  of 
Revolution  on  France,  398 ;  treat- 
ment of  Benedict  Arnold,  407  ; 
execution  of  Major  Andre,  414 ; 
on  American  financial  straits, 
424 ;  design  on  New  York,  443  ; 
on  American  distress,  445 ;  expe- 
dition against  New  York,  451 ; 
capture  of  Yorktown,  454.  Let- 
ters, cited,  382,  footnote.  Works, 
cited  in  footnotes,  185  et  passim. 
Life,  see  SPARKS. 

Wayne,  General,  treatment  of 
Pennsylvania  mutineers,  435, 450. 

Webster,  Noah,  Essays,  cited  in 
footnotes,  15,  26,  27,  31,  32,  293. 

Wedderburn,  invective  against 
Franklin,  151,  490,  491. 

Wells.     See  ADAMS,  SAMUEL. 

Went,  Benjamin,  33. 


518 


INDEX. 


West  Indies,  trade  with,  47,  53 ; 
English  losses  in,  457, 465  ;  oppo- 
sition in,  489. 

Whale  fishery  of  New  England, 
17,  55. 

Whigs:  alleged  origin  of  party 
colours,  334  ;  advocacy  of  Ameri- 
can cause,  335. 

Whitefield,  George,  16. 

Wilmot,  Historical  View  of  the 
Commission  for  Enquiring  into 
the  Losses  and  Claims  of  the  Loy- 
alists, 484,  footnote. 

Winterbotham,  Present  Situation 
of  the  United  States  (1795),  cited 
in  footnotes,  15, 17,  21,  25. 


Wirt.  Life  of  Patrick  Henry,  cited 
in  footnotes,  27,  29,  213. 

Women  :  education  of,  in  the  colo- 
nies, 32. 

Wool  trade  :  restriction  on,  in  colo- 
nies, 43. 

Wraxall,  Memoirs,  cited,  335,  foot- 
note. 

Writs  of  Assistance  (1761),  48. 

Wyoming,  desolation  of,  361,  368. 

Yeomen  of  the  colonies,  30. 
Yorktown,  451. 

Zubly:  objections  to  the  War  for 
Independence,  207. 


THE  END. 


DATE  DUE 


1W 

i\\\r  l 

}     1971 
^RE£D 

= 

RUU  * 

JAN  31 

.1973 

MAR  7    1 

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MAR  9 

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MAR 

6     1974 

.     -    v,        1 

5  1974 

WMlH 

i  QRPCTO 

MOV 

1  S  107^1 

i  o  /y/4 

NC 

V13«U!f 

